


They Don't Love You Like I Love You

by Kamylove



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: And They All Ship Katya and Alaska, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Lots of bad words, M/M, Many Other Ru Girls Make Appearances, RPF, Rating will go up, Slow Burn, Yes There Will Be Penises, eventually, katlaska
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:51:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 27,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16087430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamylove/pseuds/Kamylove
Summary: "There is absolutely no factual or metaphorical fucking going on." Not yet, anyway. Or, Katya and Alaska take the slow train.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction based on characters created by real humans. It most likely bears no relation or resemblance to those real humans or any other humans. I mean Alaska's probably dropped her phone at some point in her life, but other than that, I made it all up.

Alaska drops her phone the second Katya turns the light off on hers.

Katya laughs and slaps her own thigh and then Alaska's thigh in the dark, Alaska says, "Shit, fuck, damn, motherfucker," and they both dive to the floor to look for it, knocking heads on the way.

"Ow, you bitch!" Katya says. Then they have to sit on the floor cackling for a bit.

Finally, Alaska catches her breath and says, "Turn your damn phone on, for fuck's sake." Which makes Katya cackle some more while she fumbles for it.

The little beam of light makes Alaska blink, and she pounces on her phone.

Katya's already climbing, less than gracefully, back into the seat. "Better?" she asks.

"I feel like a normal human person again," Alaska says as she gets back up, much more gracefully, and slides in next to Katya.

Katya doesn't make the joke Alaska expects, and Alaska should know better by now.

"Is it my turn to tell a ghost story?" Katya asks instead, and then answers her own question. "It's my turn to tell a ghost story."

"Go for it," Alaska says, but Katya's already started.

"Once upon a time," Katya's saying, "many years ago, there was a queen who auditioned for a television show called RuPaul's Drag Race. Have you heard of it?"

"I don't watch reality TV," Alaska says.

"No," Katya says, "you're way too classy for that trash, unlike some people I know. _Anyway_ , this queen watched reality TV, and she auditioned for RuPaul's Drag Race, which you've never heard of, twenty-three times." She grabs Alaska's arm for emphasis. "Twenty-three!"

"In one season," Alaska adds.

Katya nods. "Twenty-three audition tapes in one season! So Miss Paul, I think her name is, got sick of getting tapes in the mail and she said, 'What the fuck. Bring this bitch to Hollywood!'"

"Or Long Beach," Alaska says.

"Or Long Beach. So she goes, and she's very well behaved, she doesn't sneak in a phone or a husband or anything."

"Weed?"

"Maybe some weed. She's human, after all." Katya holds up the light under her chin. " _For now_ ," she adds ominously.

"Not a ghost yet," Alaska says.

Katya hits Alaska's shoulder. "No spoilers! So the very first mini challenge is something truly terrifying and life threatening that I can't think of right now-"

"Posing for a photo in a giant fish tank?" 

"No, that was your season and I can see why you've blocked the entire experience. It was something even more terrifying and life threatening, and our queen's life was indeed threatened, and she died a horrible, violent death!"

"No!"

"Yes! But, you know, this bitch sent in 23 audition tapes. Ain't no way she's going home."

Alaska gasps. "She's still there?"

"Yes!"

"Even though the studio's moved?"

"Yes! She sees all the new queens every season, and she starts stealing shit, because she's so damn tired of wearing the same drag for so many years. And that's who stole your ridiculous blue paint, so you couldn't make a fool of yourself in Read U Wrote U. Which I won, by the way."

Pretending to be appalled, Alaska says, "Bitch! You made that up!"

"One hundred percent God's honest truth, I swear!"

"No, I meant the part about you winning the last challenge," Alaska says.

"Fuck you," Katya says sweetly. "I'm taking your light away." And she turns off the phone, leaving them in darkness again. 

It's quiet, and peaceful, and Katya has put herself on hold for a minute, so there's nothing to do but breathe.

Until Alaska hears a slow scratch, scratch, scratch that makes her jump out of her skin. "Stop that," she says.

"I'm not doing anything. It's Jerry from down the street with his plastic hook."

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

"I'm enough of a pain in the ass as a sort-of person. You don't want to deal with me as a ghost."

"I don't know why I deal with you at all," Alaska says. It makes Katya cackle again and kick her feet in the air and Alaska imitates her, badly.

The thing is, Alaska never expected to like Katya this much. 

They were friendly, before, in the same way she's friendly with all the girls, but they didn't see each other much before All Stars, and Alaska wasn't interested in getting to know anyone while they were there. And honestly, she'd thought Katya was the one most likely to beat her out of the crown Alaska wanted more than anything.

It was only afterwards that she started to think of Katya as a friend, even a kindred left of center spirit. Started to be fascinated by the way Katya's mind worked and to enjoy the logical leaps, to follow Katya along on any tangent and not even care if they ever get to the point, though Katya usually does, eventually. They've toured together, laughed together on stage and off, done yoga together (Alaska badly, Katya perfectly), played card games and video games and shared headphones in airports. But they've almost always been surrounded by friends and fans.

Which is why Alaska's not sure she wants this ride to end.

Katya must feel the same, because she puts her head on Alaska's shoulder in the dark and says, "I'm starving, are you starving?"

"Ravenous, darling," Alaska says.

"Ooh, come up to mine and we'll order room service and watch a crappy movie?"

Alaska agrees and Katya's already jumped on another train of thought, so they follow it the rest of the way down the mountain.


	2. Chapter 2

They do go up to Katya's room, and order something disgusting for Katya and something healthier for Alaska, plus tea and ice cream, because Katya firmly believes that ice cream is never the wrong answer, no matter how cold it is outside. 

She sits on the bed with her laptop and calls out the names of movies while Alaska shimmies out of that wonderfully ugly snowsuit, and Alaska picks _I Married a Monster from Outer Space_.

Katya's delighted--she's learned in the last year that she and Alaska are conjoined twins in the humor department--but what she says is, "That is not a crappy movie. That is quality cinema and a classic."

"Agreed. Let's watch it anyway." Alaska leaves the snowsuit in a heap on the floor but keeps the fuzzy hat, and plucks the laptop off of Katya's lap to put it on the dresser opposite before she clicks play. "There's no way you can sit still long enough to make a movie watchable," she says.

"Marge," Katya quotes in one of her favorite accents. "Marge, dear, you're not married yet."

"Premarital sex?" Alaska says with a gasp. "Are you making me watch Godless, filthy pornography?"

"Premarital _kissing_ , and yes. Obviously." 

They prop themselves up on pillows, shoulder to shoulder, legs stretched out, and Alaska quotes, "I was reading books about career women, but now I've been saved."

"Shhh. No spoilers!" Katya says. She's seen the movie at least four times, and obviously, Alaska'a seen it more than once, too.

"That dog had better not die," Alaska says. 

"Shhh!" Katya says, laughing. She elbows Alaska in the ribs, and Alaska elbows her back.

<><><>

Halfway through the movie, the food still hasn't arrived, and when Katya turns to Alaska to complain, she realizes she's been laughing alone for a few minutes now.

Alaska's asleep, mouth slightly open, false lashes resting on her cheeks, that stupid hat on her head. The lights from the screen are playing across her pale skin, still covered in makeup.

It's, God, she really is pretty and she always has been, the prettiest of all of them, Katya thinks.

"I'm going to make you pay for this someday," she says quietly. Then she turns off the laptop and watches on her phone instead, with only one earbud so she'll hear room service in the hallway. She doesn't want them to wake Alaska up when they knock.

<><><>

A growling stomach and a full bladder wake Alaska, who opens her eyes to a dark room, and a window with the shimmering lights of Aspen beyond. She thinks about how different it is to wake up in an unexpected place when you're sober.

There's a blanket over her, and a crick in her neck, and next to her is Katya, asleep under the covers. Her face is clear of makeup and she smells like a combination of dish soap and hotel soap. Alaska's never understood how Katya can have decent skin with the stuff she puts on it.

As she pushes herself up, she feels something fall from her hand. It's a crumpled up piece of hotel stationery, and she takes it over to the window for the light. It says, in all caps, "YOU CUNT, I HAD TO WATCH THAT SHIT ALONE. P.S. FOOD'S IN THE FRIDGE. P.P.S. STAY."

Alaska smiles and looks fondly at Katya. Alaska's seen her asleep more than once, but she's never seen Katya in her own bed, looking so still and safe and calm.

And then Alaska really does have to pee, so she does, and washes her hands, and takes off her sweater, because she's always hot when she wakes up.

The food is in the fridge as promised. Her quinoa and kale salad _("Fucking pretentious hotel," Katya had said)_ is a bit soggy but edible, her tea on a tray nearby. They'd brought a pot of now lukewarm water and a basket of assorted tea bags; Alaska pours a cup and drops an herbal mint into it. She's too lazy to heat anything up, so it's just slightly minty water. 

Then she takes her salad over to one of the armchairs by the window, eating with her feet on the small coffee table, looking out at the snow. When she goes back for a bottle of water, she finds a bowl half full of melted ice cream. She smiles and eats that, too.

She uses Katya's makeup remover, and she stays.

<><><>

Katya usually sleeps in the middle of any bed she's in. Today, though, she finds herself on the edge, and remembers why as she rolls over to investigate.

At some point in the night, Alaska had woken up and slid under the covers, and Katya doesn't want to wake her. She props herself up on her elbow and stays there, wondering why it makes her so happy that Alaska didn't leave.

After a while, though, she gets bored, and starts poking Alaska in the arm.

"What the hell are you doing?" Alaska asks, not opening her eyes.

"Waiter, there's a very handsome man in my soup," Katya says. 

"Ugh, you're so weird."

"You know my eyes aren't closed, right? I can see you smiling. You can't deny it."

Alaska kicks her.

"Hey!" Katya says, kicking back. "I took a picture, you know. I sent it to Svetlana Borisnova and said, ‘I have bad news. I'm bringing a girl home.'"

"You did not do that," Alaska says. Her eyes are open now and her smile just gets wider.

"You're right, I didn't," Katya confesses. "I wanted to, though."

"Of course you wanted to," Alaska says. "I'm fabulous. I'd want to show me off, too."

<><><>

There's a meet and greet over breakfast. While Alaska chats with fans, she keeps finding herself turning to say something to Katya, who always seems to be nearby.

Afterwards, Alaska has a flight to catch. Katya, who is staying for a few more days, follows her up to her room to help her pack. Help from Katya naturally means stream of consciousness narration that gets sillier by the second, which Alaska doesn't mind at all.

Finally, they take the elevator downstairs together and exchange air kisses.

"I love your pussy," Katya says.

"I love your vagina," Alaska says.

<><><>

Alaska finds her seat on the plane, and pulls up the news on her phone. It's fucking depressing, though, and she can't focus on it. She scans her texts, reads an email from her agent, texts an old friend to say that, yes, she's okay, and she's sorry she didn't reply last night.

Eventually, she gives up. She snaps a selfie with her head on the window, wearing the most miserable expression in her repertoire, and texts it to Katya with the words, "Missing you already."

It takes six minutes for Katya to reply with a selfie of her own. She's lying on her back in the snow, arms crossed over her chest and tongue hanging out, playing dead. But Alaska can see the smile Katya's trying to hide. 

The text says only, "xoxo."


	3. Chapter 3

They text a lot over the next few weeks, facetime a couple times, even manage to meet for a quick lunch when their schedules coincide for one day in LA. Then Alaska's off to Brazil, and Katya's off to Miami. Then there's Mexico City, and San Diego; and Tallahassee, and Nashville, and Atlanta.

Katya sends Alaska selfies in front of dumpsters, and long strings of emojis that probably make perfect sense to Katya. 

Alaska sends pictures of every hotel room she stays in, PDFs of hideous crochet patterns she finds online, menus whenever she comes across a new vegetarian restaurant.

Katya texts things in Russian that Alaska has to look up on Google Translate, things like, "Ma'am, your car is fully automatic," and "This box is full of squirrels, please exchange it immediately," and "The darker the night, the brighter the stars," which Alaska thinks is much less ridiculous and also vaguely familiar.

Alaska texts back, "I can see the sun, but even if I can't see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there--that is living," which, Katya thinks, is very much taken out of context, but perfect anyway. 

Katya sends a wall of Cyrillic text that turns out to be an operator's manual for a tractor from the 1940's. Alaska retaliates with the longest, dullest article she can find on the chemical composition of various shades of house paint, google translated into Greek. She follows it up with every single vegetable, fruit, and livestock emoji on her phone.

There are traffic updates from whatever city they're in and from cities they've never been to: Minsk, Cairo, Montevideo; Kyoto when they're sharing sushi on facetime and Zurich when they're sharing chocolate. There are video game sessions from across oceans. There are updates on their friends' lives. _("Not to be called gossip," Alaska says.)_ There are frantic text discussions about new songs to use on stage, facetimes about clothes and wigs and makeup, conversations after almost every show.

There's brainstorming about new material, despair over politics and joy over good days and commiseration over bad ones. There are frank conversations about being sober in an industry that almost requires the opposite. 

There are wakeup calls and reminder texts and inspiration when genius is on the tip of a tongue. Katya gets used to going to sleep with a smile on her face after phone conversations. Alaska gets used to finding dozens of increasingly silly texts sent while she was asleep.

There are words, and the words are endless.

<><><>

This, Alaska thinks, must just be what happens when you're friends with Katya. It'll be some time before she starts to suspect otherwise. 

_("Hell, no," Trixie will say. "If she texted me every other second I'd lose my entire damn mind.")_

Through it all, Alaska's careful to keep it off social media; she never mentions Katya on Instagram or Twitter, only likes a judicious number of her tweets, and she's not sure why. But she figures out soon enough that Katya's doing the same.

It's delicate, Alaska thinks, whatever it is that they have. It's too delicate to be exposed to the light.

<><><>

Katya sends entire scenes of Moliere in French; Alaska tells her to fuck off and texts the entire last act of Timon of Athens.

Alaska quotes The Boys in the Band; Katya quotes The Normal Heart.

Katya quotes Tennessee Williams; Alaska quotes Eugene O'Neill.

Alaska quotes Twelfth Night; Katya says that's just too easy and quotes Tamburlaine the Great.

<><><>

"Trixie says you're a positive influence on me," Katya says one night on facetime. 

Alaska is actually at home, for a whole 36 hours. She was re-packing until Katya called, and now she's sprawled on her couch. She raises an eyebrow, because she suspects there's a punchline coming. "Trixie said that?"

"Yes, because you're keeping me out of her hair. Which she thanks you for, by the way."

"My pleasure. I think," Alaska says.

"Also," Katya says, "she doesn't know how crazy you are."

"All part of my evil plan," Alaska says. "Mwahahaha."

"See?" Katya says. "Crazy." She's in Edmonton, finishing dinner and winding down after a show. She tilts her head thoughtfully. "You do have that miraculous gift for looking effortless and unbothered and unsweaty. Nobody has any idea what goes on in that pretty, horse shaped head."

"That's because I don't tell them," Alaska says. "Also part of my evil plan."

"Yes, because you, unlike me, have common sense," Katya says. "But here's the thing."

"Yes, Katya, please tell me about the thing," Alaska says, grinning.

Katya tosses a wadded-up napkin at her phone screen. "The thing is," she says, "it's a little known scientific fact that you and I have the exact same number of brain squirrels."

This is not news to Alaska, and she doubts Katya's just figured it out, either. "Please continue with your theory, Dr. Zamolodchikova," Alaska says.

"See, they're just different breeds of brain squirrel," Katya says. "Mine are those New York squirrels that will steal a sandwich and your Honda, and yours are the cute, polite, red ones they have in England. Scientific fact!"

"Absolute scientific truth," Alaska says.

"Also, you keep yours penned in the basement and trained to use kitty litter, while mine run loose and shit everywhere and attack passing motorists. Free range brain squirrels."

"Free range, Honda driving brain squirrels," Alaska says very seriously. "It all makes sense now."

"Doesn't it?"

<><><>

The second night they share a hotel room is an accident. 

They haven't seen each other in a while; Katya's flight is late and she gets into town just in time for the show. Afterwards they start talking, and laughing, and Katya doesn't even notice she's following Alaska up to her room until they've already been there for twenty minutes.

It's four in the morning and Alaska shrugs and says, "My flight's at eight, you might as well stay. You want half of this sandwich?"

Katya says yes, and they still have so much to say that she doesn't even think about leaving.

<><><>

After that, it's weeks before they're in the same place at the same time, and that place is Key West, the weekend of the Great Conch Republic Drag Race. 

They're not judging this time, just performing down the street with a few other girls. The organizers invite them all to attend in drag, but Katya says, "It's their day," and Alaska says, "Not ours." So they go as boys, wearing baseball caps and the most cis straight t-shirts they can buy for each other. 

_(Katya's t-shirt says "God's gift to women;" Alaska's says "No gay man would wear a shirt this ugly." "Those are the straightest things you could find?" Roxxxy says.)_

They stay on the edge of the crowd, cheering gamely, speaking sotto voce when they need to speak. In Key West, gay famous is bigger than regular famous, but they're only recognized once.

After their show is over, they slip out to the beach with their makeup still on and write Alaska catchphrases in the sand, by the light of Katya's phone.

<><><>

 **Text from Katya:** starfish  
**Text from Alaska:** long division  
**Alaska:** amoeba  
**Katya:** shovel

 **Alaska:** rogue  
**Katya:** chickens  
**Katya:** eclipse  
**Alaska:** chickens  
**Katya:** No. There are rules.

<><><>

Katya sends mp3s of lip sync songs she knows Alaska hates; Alaska sends mp3s of the two lip syncs she won against Katya. 

"Fuck you and your lip sync licking ways," Katya texts. "I'm not talking to you for at least 10 minutes." 

So Alaska sends "Roar" and "Step It Up," too, and Katya ups it to twenty minutes.

She only makes it to fifteen.

<><><>

"Tell me another ghost story," Alaska says over over, late at night, on facetime. She likes the way Katya's eyes light up when she asks. 

<><><>

"You up?" Katya's text says. "Can I call?"

Alaska's had her phone set to accept all calls from Katya at all hours for weeks, and she's pretty sure Katya knows that. "Of course you can," she texts back. "You don't have to ask."

The phone rings almost immediately.

"Hey," Alaska says. "You okay?"

She can hear Katya sucking on a cigarette. "Squirrels, treadmill, brain," Katya says.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Alaska says, her heart racing with scary what ifs. "Do you want to use?"

"A little. But I'm not going to. It's the effect, not the cause."

"Okay, that's good. Do you," and she's not sure where to go, so she asks. "I don't know what works for you. Should I try to distract you, or do you want to tell me about the squirrels?"

"Just talk," Katya says on an exhale. "You. Just talk."

So Alaska does, for hours. She thinks about what she wants to hear, on days when the anxiety takes over. She tells Katya about her day, about the books she's been reading, about the weather, about every single thing in her luggage on this trip. She tells her the dumbest jokes she knows. She recites scenes from Golden Girls and the words to songs she knows Katya hates.

At some point, Katya starts interjecting dumb jokes of her own. And then the jokes get better, which is when Alaska starts to think it might be okay.

Before she knows it, the sun is coming up between the curtains she never pulled the night before, and Katya is yawning.

"Do you think you can sleep now?" Alaska asks quietly. Her heart feels very full.

"I think so," Katya says.

"Then sleep. I'm here. Call me if you need me."

Alaska thinks she hears "I always need you," muttered under Katya's breath, but she's probably imagining it.

"I wish I was there," Alaska says. She hears a long sigh in response.

"Me too," Katya says.

"Do you want me to stay on the phone until you drift off?" Alaska asks.

Katya makes a low noise in the back of her throat. "That would be lovely." 

"Sleep," Alaska says, and it's not long before she hears Katya's breaths start to slow and even out. Still, she waits another ten minutes before whispering, "Katya?"

When she gets no answer, she sighs in relief. But she turns off the microphone on her phone and leaves the call connected, for a long, long time.


	4. Chapter 4

It helps Alaska to know she'll be seeing Katya soon, to know she'll be able to look into Katya's eyes with no camera in between, to make sure sure Katya's as okay as she claims in the days after their phone call. Not that she's ever known Katya to lie about her mental health; Katya's more open about it than almost anyone. It's just that Alaska knows what it's like to lie to herself.

And Katya hasn't been dumping her entire psyche on the internet as often lately, so there's less information to go on.

Alaska turns down the offer of a ride from the airport. Instead, she waits 83 minutes for Katya's plane to arrive, and buys an iced coffee the way Katya likes it, to take to the gate.

She doesn't get a chance to hand it over. Katya walks right up to Alaska, pulls her close, and buries her face in Alaska's neck.

Alaska hugs back, careful not to spill the coffee. "Hey," she says, and Katya sighs like she's put down a heavy load.

 _Are you okay_ is such an empty question. Alaska says, "Missed you," instead.

Katya squeezes her tighter and just breathes. Alaska rests her cheek on Katya's head and they stay that way for a long time, just two gay boys in the sea of travelers that, for these few moments, is passing them by.

<><><>

"I really am okay," Katya says, as they head to baggage claim. "It's just nice to have someone who won't judge me."

"I judge you for all sorts of things," Alaska says. "Like that fucking raccoon."

Katya, waving her drink around in a way that often leads to a big mess, fakes an insulted gasp. Alaska laughs and takes the cup away from her, just in case.

"That fucking raccoon is my best friend!" Katya says. "Don't insult her, she'll hear!"

"Is she in your backpack? Is she listening right now?"

"No, but we share a deep, devoted, psychic link."

"That makes it even more-"

"I lied," Katya says. She stops without warning in the middle of the concourse, annoying the family behind them. 

"What?" Alaska says. Usually she can follow Katya just fine, these days.

Katya looks her in the eye. "I'm a shitty liar. I don't care who judges me. I just wanted it to be you."

Alaska feels something warm and unexpected bloom in her chest. Honestly, it hadn't crossed her mind to question why Katya had called. "I'm glad," she says. "I'm glad you called and I'm glad I could help."

Katya smiles at her, and they keep walking.

<><><>

They are, thankfully, not performing that night, so it's almost the reverse of that first night in Aspen: room service, a couple movies, and Katya falling asleep sooner than either of them expects. Alaska watches her sleep longer than she thinks she should.

In the middle of the night Alaska hears a text notification on her phone, and decides to ignore it. But a few minutes later the phone actually rings and she reaches for it blindly, moving nothing but her arm.

It's Roxxxy, who must have just arrived, and who sounds wide awake. "Where are you? I went to your room. Are you in there and being rude?"

"I'm in Katya's," Alaska says without thinking.

"Really?" Roxxxy says. "You and Katya? You might be skinny bitches, but that's just hot."

Katya stirs and throws an arm over Alaska, but Alaska, not wanting to wake her, slips out of bed and into the bathroom.

"It's not like that," Alaska says. "She needed a friend. I fell asleep." It isn't true; she'd never intended to leave. But she's not ready to open it up to questioning. 

"Okay," Roxxxy drawls. "So, how many times have you fallen asleep in Katya's room?"

"Oh, my God," Alaska groans. "Leave me alone."

Roxxxy's still laughing when Alaska hangs up.

<><><>

It's a short series of shows on the East Coast, just a couple weeks, with most of the All Stars 2 girls. They know each other so well by now that they can just relax and have fun and make people laugh.

Katya can't even explain to herself what a relief it is to have Alaska there. She loves all the girls, and she's happy to have them around, too. They keep her busy and entertained. They're family.

But it's so nice, and so easy, to have somebody who can keep up with her no matter what, somebody who won't ask her to slow down or repeat. Their brains spark off each other, like fireworks. If left to their own devices, which happens more and more lately, they'll take off down a rabbit hole and look up to find hours have passed. 

All the Ru girls are smart. Many of them are brilliant. But there aren't many who are as quick as Alaska.

They rewatch Katya's episode of Hey Qween together, and Alaska laughs and laughs at how shell-shocked Jonny looks. "You broke him!" she says.

Katya preens. "ADD is my superpower."

"You can leap 20 topics in a single bound," Alaska says.

Katya preens some more, but she can't keep it up. She laughs instead, flailing a bit for effect.

"It's disturbing how easy it is for me to follow you now," Alaska says. 

"Agreed," Katya says. "I worry about you."

"When did I start liking you so much?" Alaska asks.

"I have no idea," Katya says, "because I am a heartless, hateful bitch. And I've never even eaten you out, which is usually what makes me so popular."

<><><>

 **Katya:** dinosaur  
**Alaska:** bat  
**Alaska:** You are sitting three feet away from me.  
**Katya:** spoilsport  
**Alaska:** harmony  
**Katya:** turnip

 **Alaska:** cowboy  
**Katya:** Czechoslovakian  
**Katya:** eclair  
**Alaska:** jerky

<><><>

Alaska colors in pages from Katya's coloring book, making them as garish as her imagination can come up with. She likes to practice keeping a straight face when she hands them to Katya, who always pretends to be offended.

"I really question your taste level," Katya says.

Alaska just gives her another.

<><><>

"So, Miss Alaska," Alyssa asks her while they're in line at Starbucks. "Tell me the truth. What is going _on_ with you and Katya?"

"I hate her guts," Alaska says. "Everyone knows that."

"All right, all right, if that's the way you want to play it. But there's something there." She points at Alaska's eyes, and then her own, with two fingers. "I can see it."

"Well, then, you need to explain to me what that is," Alaska says, "because I don't see it."

Alyssa makes an Alyssa face, but it quickly shifts to something more more mischievous as she says, "She likes you, too, you know."

Alaska groans. "Will you stop?"

"Okay, I'll drop it," Alyssa says. "I can take a hint."

"Since when?" Alaska asks.

"You shady bitch," Alyssa says cheerfully.

"If you want drama, you're going to have to stir it up yourself," Alaska says. "Try Phi Phi."

"Ooh," Alyssa says. "Seriously shady bitch."

<><><>

"Tell me the truth," Ginger says quietly, as she and Katya touch up their faces in the same mirror during a show. "I already know you're sharing rooms."

"Friends with room sharing benefits?" Katya says.

"Is that the only benefit?"

"Is having access to her wig wardrobe a benefit?"

"You tell me," Ginger says.

"Honey," Katya says. "Look at this tragic thing I am wearing." It's intentionally ugly, to go with the rest of her look, and she twirls to show it off. "What do you think?"

"Tell me you don't have a fetish for those long, blond locks?" Ginger asks suspiciously. 

"Is not fetish," Katya says in her Russian accent. "Is obsession. Why you cannot keep straight?"

"Ain't nothing straight about that," Ginger says.

<><><>

 **Alaska:** pogo stick  
**Katya:** You're sitting three feet away from me.  
**Katya:** cactus  
**Katya:** fossil  
**Alaska:** artichoke

 **Alaska:** talent  
**Katya:** Alaska  
**Alaska:** That's cheating.

"What the fuck are they doing now?" Detox asks.

Tatianna says, "I don't even want to know."

<><><>

After the tour, half of the girls, including Katya, are off to Europe for a month, and the rest, including Alaska, go their separate ways.

Alaska has a week in LA and too many things to squeeze in: meetings, interviews, a recording session, dry cleaning. But Willam talks her into going out by saying, "Support your local queens," which Alaska can never resist.

Standing there, cranberry juice in hand, signing the occasional autograph as Willam flirts with everyone in a twenty-foot radius, Alaska has trouble keeping her mind on the show. The drag is good, and she claps and cheers and tips, but she reluctantly admits to herself that it's not where she wants to be.

She's home so rarely now that she feels out of touch. But she doesn't think that's the real problem.

"What's with you?" Willam asks eventually. "You're a real downer tonight."

Alaska just shrugs.

"It's not right, working as much as you do. You need to say fuck it sometimes."

"Fuck it," Alaska says.

"Weren't you seeing a guy?" Willam says. "The one with the glasses? He was hot. I would have done him."

"That was months ago," Alaska says. "I don't know. He was nice, but he couldn't hold my attention, you know?"

"Been there, done that," Willam says.

 _(A long time later, Katya will say, "You've held_ my _attention for at least .09 seconds, which is impressive considering my average is .03," and Alaska will say, "I'm three times more interesting than average!" and Katya will look at her like she's an idiot and say, "Duh. Everybody knows that.")_

<><><>

Alaska stays just long enough after the show to say nice things to all the performers, and to demand that Willam give her phone back. _("Be in the moment," Willam had said. Alaska had rolled her eyes.)_ She's performed here many times; she knows where all the exits are, so she sneaks out while Willam's not looking.

When she turns the phone back on, on the way to her car, she finds just two texts from Katya, which is a surprise. 

"Bored. Lonely. Bored," says the first, and "Need constant entertainment," says the second.

Alaska facetimes her, and finds Katya just waking up, her hair sticking out in all directions.

"You need a constant audience," Alaska says.

"That too!" Katya says, pointing her finger at the screen like Alaska's said something earth shattering.

"Trade?" Alaska asks.

Katya makes a face. "Not that kind of audience," she says. "Or that kind of lonely."

Alaska knows exactly what she means.


	5. Chapter 5

Katya spends a lot of time trading reads with Ginger, a lot of time studying Japanese, and a lot of time confusing Phi Phi on purpose. She argues with Shangela about Game of Thrones, comes up with two new numbers to perform sometime, and gets plenty of sleep. 

It's still boring.

When Shangela walks into Katya's room to find her on facetime, she says, "Alaska, come get your girl. She's moping everywhere. Are we watching Game of Thrones or what?"

"I am not moping," Katya says. "I'm conserving my energy."

"For what?" Alaska and Shangela say at the same time, in very different tones of voice.

"My transformation into a toad prince," Katya says. She holds out her arms. "Ta-da."

"But you're such a pretty little tadpole," Alaska says.

"Bitch, I can't," Shangela says. "Come on, Cersei."

Alaska says goodbye, and Katya spends three episodes making up pie graphs to send to her. 

**How much of Alaska's hair is Alaska's actual hair:** 100%.

 **Reasons fans go to Alaska shows:** 30% merch, 25% wigs, 5% comedy, 40% possibility of penis. 

**Lip syncs I should have won:** 1% Roar, 1% Le Freak, 1% Step It Up, 97% Cherry Bomb.

 **Average Alaska video contents:** 10% nails, 10% real hair, 10% pussy, 10% tour dates, 60% terrible makeup. 

**My favorite Drag Race winners, ranked:** 100% Bob. 

**What Alaska is doing right now:** 50% reading my texts, 50% telling me to fuck off. ("Actually," Alaska replies, "it was 4% grocery shopping, 96% telling you to fuck off.")

"It's like stalking," Shangela says, looking over Katya's shoulder. "Except you're both the stalkers."

"Daenerys, come get your dragon," Katya says.

<><><>

Alaska's at a little local show up in Seattle, a fundraiser and a favor for Jinkx, just the two of them and some up-and-comers who can use the publicity. She loves sharing a stage with Jinkx, and the show goes well.

There's no meet and greet afterwards, but two young guys find her on her way to the dressing room.

"You're amazing," says one.

"We love you so much," says the other.

They're holding hands, a young couple, Alaska thinks. She tells them they're adorable while she poses for pictures.

As she starts to move on, the taller of them says, "You are our absolute favorite! You're way better than Katya. We hate her."

"She's such a wannabe," the shorter one says. "You're the real superstar."

Alaska stops, and turns to face them fully. They're cute, and they're her fans, and they seem like good kids--all of which is why she doesn't blow up at them, even though she wants to.

"Can I give you some life advice?" she asks, dropping Alaska's inflections and using her own. "Don't compliment one person by putting down another. It's not cute."

She gives them a smile to soften the blow--she hopes it's a kind smile, not a sarcastic one--and walks away.

It's hardly the first time anyone's tried to pit her and Katya against each other. Or her and Jinkx, for that matter. But it is the first time she hasn't responded with a simple, graceful thank you.

"Well, that'll be on Reddit in under 10 minutes," Jinkx says quietly. She'd been walking behind Alaska and had seen the whole thing, obviously.

Alaska sighs. "I know. It was dumb."

Jinkx takes her hand and leads her back to an empty office, instead of the dressing room they're sharing with the other queens. Alaska's grateful. There's too much noise in her head right now.

"You know what they're like," Jinkx says. "You don't normally let it get to you. What's up?"

"Just a long day," Alaska lies, and she knows Jinkx knows, and she must look in bad shape if Jinkx isn't going to call her on her bullshit. Jinkx is one of her best friends, and somehow more mature than the rest of them put together, and she just looks at Alaska in a way that makes her want to squirm.

So Alaska confesses. "Jinkxy, I really miss him," she says. She hates the whine in her voice, and she's never admitted it to anyone else, or even fully to herself.

"Oh!" Jinkx says, with genuine surprise. "I didn't know that was a serious thing."

"It's not. It's not anything," Alaska says, and then, all in one quick breath: "It's just we've been spending a lot of time together and now we're on different continents and I miss him so much and I couldn't handle them thinking we hate each other."

"It doesn't matter what they think, honey. All that matters is what you and Katya think."

"You're so nice," Alaska whines some more. "How are you so nice? And how are you younger than me?"

"Darling, after 50, no one can tell the difference anyway."

Alaska laughs, reluctantly, and says, even more reluctantly, "I didn't know I cared this much."

Jinkx pats her on the arm. "I can't leave yet," she says, "but I can give you the key and call you an uber?"

"I'd really, really like that," Alaska says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [See Katya's pie charts here!](https://katlaskamylove.tumblr.com/post/180531743078/for-your-consideration-the-pie-charts-katya-made)


	6. Chapter 6

It's morning in England, and Katya's already heard about Alaska's misstep by the time she lies down in Jinkx' spare room. Of course Katya's heard about it. 

"Jinkx didn't say anything, did she?"

"Please, Jinkx' lips are as tightly sealed as mine around a homeless man's dick."

Alaska says fondly, "You're disgusting."

"Only twenty percent disgusting. I have standards to keep."

"Eighty percent," Alaska says.

"Thirty?"

"Seventy." 

"Fifty and that's my final offer," Katya says.

"I'll take it. Where do I sign?"

"On my ass with a tattoo pen." 

Alaska laughs. And really, it is pretty funny. It all feels better with Katya's voice in her ear.

"What the hell did you say, anyway?" Katya asks. "Twenty people have tweeted twenty different things at me."

"I just said that complimenting me by insulting you was a bad idea. And you shouldn't be reading your Twitter mentions, anyway."

"Both of these things are true."

"They were nice kids, you know?" Alaska says. "My timing wasn't the best. I feel bad."

"Poor Lasky," Katya says. "Fucking up ever so slightly in public for the first time this year."

"Your reverse psychology will not work on me," Alaska says, smiling.

"It's not reverse psychology, it's irony," Katya says. "You should look it up."

"I can't," Alaska says. "My phone's dead. Goodnight."

"Ha!" 

The bed is very soft. Alaska crawls under the covers, and lays her head on the pillow. "Just," she says, yawning, "remind me next time to take it out on one of the creeps instead?"

"I'm here for you, baby. Send all the creeps my way."

"No way," Alaska says. "You'll fuck them all and then you'll be back up to eighty percent disgusting."

<><><>

For the next week, Katya hunts down cute, animated snake gifs all over the web, and texts them to Alaska every hour, on the hour. 

<><><>

 **Alaska:** synchrony  
**Katya:** symmetry  
**Katya:** sodomite  
**Alaska:** me!

 **Katya:** jellies  
**Alaska:** Katya  
**Katya:** correct

 **Alaska:** vagina  
**Katya:** pussy

<><><>

It's late--by human time, not drag time--and Katya's been home from England for a couple days, though she hasn't had a minute to enjoy it. Tomorrow she's shooting with Trixie all day, so they're working out details on facetime. There's drag all over Katya's living room--dresses, wigs, shoes, all of her tackiest jewelry--but they've mostly made their decisions already.

The buzzer on Katya's intercom goes off, and she jumps. The damn thing is loud. She's never spent enough time at home to get used to it. "What the fuck?" she says. 

"Do you often have men dropping by at 11:30 at night?" Trixie says.

"I'm not in that business anymore," Katya says as she goes to see who it is.

"Are you aware that prostitution is the punchline to at least half of your jokes?" 

Katya gives her the finger, even though she's out of camera range.

She presses talk. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing roaming the streets at this hour?"

Alaska's voice is a surprise. "It's me, you bitch. Can I come up?"

Behind Katya, Trixie calls from the laptop screen, "Have fun with your girlfriend!"

"Fuck off and I'll see you tomorrow," Katya calls back. 

She hears something heavy pounding up the stairs and opens her door to say, quietly, "Did you bring me a dead body?"

"Come down and help me," Alaska says pitiably. "And get an apartment with an elevator next time."

Katya finds her one flight down and takes two of the three suitcases off her hands. "You look terrible," she says.

"Thanks," Alaska says drily, as they climb the stairs and go inside.

"I thought I wouldn't see you until Thursday," Katya says happily. She gives Alaska a hug that lasts a little longer than Katya expected.

"My uber drove by your street and I just told him to stop."

Katya had known Alaska was having a crappy day, but when the texts had stopped hours earlier, she'd assumed the afternoon was proceeding as planned. "Did you really just land?" Katya says. 

"My flight got delayed _again_ ," Alaska is saying, "and they made us wait on the tarmac, and I lost my charger, and there wasn't anything I could eat, and I'm so fucking tired, and can you please just feed me?"

Halfway through this speech, Katya grabs Alaska by the wrist and steers her to the kitchen table. While Alaska flops into a chair, Katya pours her a glass of water, and opens a cabinet. She recognizes the signs; Alaska gets cranky when she's hungry.

"You're assuming I have food," Katya says, already handing her a can of almonds. 

"See?" Alaska says. "You always have food." She pops a handful of almonds into her mouth, drinks half of the water, and then frowns. "I had to cancel that photo shoot," she adds.

Katya pouts in sympathy. She knows Alaska was looking forward to it. "I'm sorry," she says. "Can you reschedule?"

"Not for two months," Alaska says, "and by then it will be too late. I feel more human already, thank you."

"You're very welcome," Katya says, opening cabinets one by one. "I have pasta," she says. "Oh! Spaghettios! Do you want spaghettios? I have two cans! Oh! Peanut butter and jelly?"

"Maybe tomorrow in my lunchbox," Alaska says.

"Grownup food. Okay." Katya opens her freezer. "I have some--no, that's not vegetarian. Oh!" she says, opening the fridge, "Vegetables! I have so many vegetables! I thought I'd do a fruit and veg cleanse, but I've already cheated. I could make you a smoothie?"

She turns around to see Alaska propping her head up in one hand at the table, looking at Katya with soft eyes and an even softer smile. It disarms Katya for a second, and she smiles a little awkwardly.

"A smoothie would be perfect," Alaska says.

"Perfect!" Katya says, and gets to work. She's missing lime, Alaska likes lime, but she's got everything else she needs.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Alaska asks. "Is this something you do every night?"

Katya looks down. She's still got on the last outfit she showed Trixie, and without padding or makeup, it looks even worse than usual. "Yes," she says. "I always wear questionable drag to bed. It's just so comfortable. No, I was talking to Trixie."

"That's why it looks like a drag queen exploded in your living room."

"Not a drag queen. Just a drag queen's closet."

"I'm sorry I took you away from Trixie."

"Stop apologizing and drink this," Katya says. "It will improve your mood 500 percent."

Alaska takes it gratefully. Katya opens a can of Spaghettios for herself. 

"What happened to your cleanse?" Alaska says.

"Ugh," Katya says. "Maybe tomorrow."

"You'll be eating junk food all day in the studio tomorrow."

"Shut up," Katya says.

"This is amazing," Alaska says. "Thank you so much."

"Anytime, gurl."

When Alaska finishes, she lays her head on her arms, on the table. Katya pets her hair.

"Are you staying?" Katya asks. 

"I can't," Alaska says without lifting her head. "I'm out of boy clothes and I have a meeting at eight. I'm wearing my underwear inside out, it's disgusting."

"Tell me about it," Katya says. "I have one pair left. I was just about to start some laundry, actually."

"Look at us," Alaska says. "Look how glamorous we are."

Katya chuckles. "One of us is glamorous," she says. "And it's not you."

Alaska chokes with laughter, and Katya feels gratified. She pets Alaska's hair again. 

"Want me to throw some of your clothes in with mine?" Katya asks.

Alaska sits up, her face brightening. "I should say no," she says.

"That's a yes," Katya says.

Alaska gives her that soft smile again. "Hey," she says. "I love your vagina."

"And I love your pussy," Katya says.

<><><>

When Katya finishes two hours later, she finds a familiar sight--Alaska's complicated skincare routine spread out on the bathroom counter, and an unfamiliar one--Alaska's freakishly long legs and arms taking up the entire damn bed. That's not how she sleeps on the road. On the road, she usually sleeps in a little ball that no one that tall should be able to squeeze themselves into.

Katya tries to nudge her to one side.

"What?" Alaska mutters, stretching the word into at least three syllables.

"I'd like a little space in my own bed, please."

"You're so demanding," Alaska grumbles as she makes room. 

Katya slides in next to her, goes to plug in her phone, and finds Alaska's already charging there. "Bitch," she says.

"Fuck off," Alaska says, and Katya wonders when she began to find cranky Alaska so endearing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so many great comments over the weekend, I'm posting the next chapter early to say thanks!
> 
> AO3 won't let me reply to comments this week (???), but I love you all! And everyone else who's reading, too. Thank you!

Alaska's about to leave in the morning when Katya stumbles out to her living room, which now looks like two queens exploded.

"Sorry I woke you," Alaska says. She'd been trying very hard not to. She even got up in the middle of the night to fetch her phone and put it under her pillow, on vibrate.

Katya shakes her head as she digs through a drawer, and hands Alaska a set of keys. "So you can clean this up later," she says, yawning. "Half of season 7 has one already."

 _You're adorable,_ Alaska thinks, but all she says is, "Thanks."

<><><>

Living in the same city doesn't actually mean they get to see each other more often, and they're both fully booked for the rest of the week. 

Katya visits Alaska's video shoot for a couple hours; Alaska brings lunch to the studio once for Katya, Trixie, and the crew. Katya has a show at a club in WeHo, and Alaska goes along with Trixie and Violet and Detox. 

But otherwise it's just work--so much to get done every time they go home--and a secret project Katya is working on with Trixie every night. _("Top secret Soviet propaganda," Katya says. "I tell you then I kill you.")_ Alaska can easily guess--All Stars 3 starts filming next month--but she plays along anyway.

<><><>

Katya sometimes thinks that working with Trixie is her natural habitat, and it took her 32 years to find the person she didn't know was missing. 

Trixie was one of the first people who really got Katya, who didn't make her feel like a weirdo. _("A lovable weirdo, remember," Trixie says.)_ They don't spend much time together outside of work these days--they're too busy, and it ruins the spontaneity of the show, and their paths rarely cross on tour. But Katya still tells Trixie almost everything. 

Almost. 

There's something about her friendship with Alaska that feels like it needs to be protected. Like it's Katya's job to keep it safe, so she leaves a lot of it out for reasons she can't explain. 

Katya loves Trixie with all her heart, and she needs Trixie like she needs her left arm. But Trixie's primary responsibility, now, in their professional lives, is Katya-wrangling. It's what makes their show work. It's what makes their business work.

And maybe, Katya's starting to think, maybe Katya-wrangling isn't what she needs right now, out of drag. 

Maybe what she needs out of drag is someone who'll jump on Katya's crazy train and happily go off the rails with her.

She tells Trixie this, while they change between shooting episodes, and Trixie says, "Better her than me, honestly. I have a limit and I'd like to continue not murdering you in your sleep."

"Don't murder me in my sleep," Katya says. "It would upset the shippers, and they'd send you hate mail in prison."

"The last thing I need in prison is hate mail," Trixie says. "Wait, does this make me the less crazy friend? Because that has never happened to me before and I really want to brag about it to my therapist."

"You have my permission to brag," Katya says, very seriously.

"And you have my permission to go hijack a train. I'll even bail you both out when you get arrested," Trixie says. 

Katya thinks that's fair.

_(One day, far, far in the future, Trixie will say, "And that's when I gave the disturbed alien ladyman permission to marry my daughter. Thank you and goodnight!")_

<><><>

After hardly seeing each other in LA, Alaska and Katya fly off in different directions, again. 

Six weeks, Alaska thinks on the plane. Six weeks is too long.

<><><>

Katya's hotel room is big and empty. All the hotel rooms lately have been big and empty, and bad things happen when she's bored. She tries very, very hard not to be bored. _Constant entertainment_ , she'd told Alaska, and _constant audience_ , Alaska had told her. 

So she's sitting in the lobby, ostensibly waiting for the other girls, and Alaska's showing off her shopping haul on facetime.

"Oh my God, I _love_ that," Katya says. "Where did you get it?"

"Random vintage store in Oakland," Alaska says. "Isn't it cute?"

"That cherry blossom pink is _perfect_." 

"And then I found this awful fabric for two dollars, but I don't know if I can do anything with it," Alaska says.

"No. You can't. Burn it."

"Hmm," Alaska says.

"The pattern is great, but the shade is all wrong for you. Unless you want to shake up your wig situation for once?"

"Fuck you," Alaska says. "Do you want this?"

"Ugh, no. Go back to the pink. What are you going to do with it?"

"You just want to see me in pink all the time, and I'll have you know that I am a grown woman."

"No, I want to see you in yellow all the time." Two of Katya's all time favorite Alaska dresses are yellow. "But you only wear it under duress."

"Yellow makes me look sallow."

"It makes you look angelic."

"If by angelic you mean deceased. You don't like yourself in yellow, either."

Katya scoffs and points to the ugly, neon yellow shirt she's wearing. It says "Nobody knows I'm gay," and Alaska's seen it plenty of times before. 

"I meant on stage. Except for that crocheted monstrosity, which was mustard and totally different, but looked amazing on you anyway."

"Shut your mouth," Katya says. "It did not. Are you trying to ruin my reputation?"

"Not today, no," Alaska says, and they share a pair of big smiles. 

"What I don't understand," Alaska continues, teasing, "is how you can have actual good taste and still dress-"

"Like this?" Katya says.

"Like that?" Alaska finishes at the same time.

"I don't have good taste. That's a terrible thing to say to someone. I just know what looks good on you."

Alaska smirks and flutters her eyelashes, which is a lot less effective with no makeup. 

"Looks good on who?" Courtney says, as she walks into the lobby.

Detox is right behind her and says, "Hi, Alaska!" before she even sees who Katya is talking to.

"I'm her new style consultant," Katya announces.

"God help us all," Alaska says with a wink only Katya can see.

Phi Phi's shown up now, too, and she asks, "Are they flirting again?" 

"They only flirt on days ending in Y," Ginger says as she walks in.

"I think we're leaving now," Katya says to Alaska.

"Have fun," Alaska says. "Call me later?"

"Of course I'll call you later. You think I want to put up with these bitches all night?"

"We love you, too, honey," Detox says.

"Bye Alaska," Courtney says. 

"Bye Alaska," Katya repeats, and tucks her phone into the pocket of her jeans.

"Parting is such sweet, sweet sorrow," Ginger says.

"I hate you all," Katya says cheerfully. "I'm breaking up with the whole lot of you."

<><><>

She's not exactly breaking up with them, but she is relieved to say goodbye at the last airport. She'll be seeing Detox in ten days, but it'll be awhile before she crosses paths with the others. If she's honest, she's happy to have a break from the scrutiny.

She spends a few days staying with Bob, who, blissfully, doesn't mention Alaska once. But Bob does drag Katya out every night, and make her laugh until her abs hurt.

Katya goes fabric shopping with Fame, and calls Alaska to show her the results. She goes with Bob to see some young queens she's never heard of, and texts Alaska to tell her about them. She goes out to eat, and sends Alaska pictures of the food. She switches to a hotel at the end of the week, and stays up late telling Alaska ghost stories.

She has a show in Philadelphia, and another in Brooklyn, and then it's time to hit the road again.

She's happy for the break, but she has someone she wants to see.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're now just over one-third of the way through the story. I warned you it was a slow burn!

They're halfway through rehearsal when Katya rushes in. She'd texted to tell them her flight was late and the traffic was awful, but Alaska was starting to worry. 

"Look what the garbage truck dragged in," Manila says.

"We were all waiting for you," Kim says. "Only we weren't."

"Yay, you're here!" Alaska says, clapping her hands.

"Finally," Katya says. "Sorry, everybody."

There are hugs and air kisses all around, and then it's down to the business of teaching Katya choreography for the opening and closing numbers because she's joined them a few shows in. But Katya's obviously still frazzled.

"Sorry," she says after missing a turn three times in a row.

"Can we work on the rest and come back to this at the end?" Alaska suggests. 

Naomi and Kim are doing a number together, and Peppermint and Shea are doing another, so while they all practice their blocking, Alaska helps Katya work on the new steps. They laugh and chat and Detox pretends to be disgusted, and Sharon and Manila get sick of them and go off to talk on their own. So in the end it's just the two of them, on the floor, heads close together, Alaska with her legs crossed and Katya stretching to warm up for her acrobatics.

"You will not believe the bullshit I've had to put up with from these bitches," Alaska says, loud enough for the others to hear.

"Fuck you," three of them say. 

Alaska grins at Katya and Katya says, "Oh my God, I have so much to tell you."

And then Alaska hears Kim say, "Katya and Alaska are fucking."

"Lucky blond bitches," Manila says.

"Be nice," Peppermint says.

"I don't know, I think they're adorable," Sharon says.

Detox just says, "Ugh."

Alaska's watching all this with one eyebrow raised, while Katya grabs her arm and laughs too hard to talk.

Michelle gives them a look that suggests they're confusing the hell out of her.

"We are not fucking," Alaska says.

"It's true, we're not," Katya says brightly, choking back another laugh. 

"See?" Sharon says. "Adorable."

"We're not speaking to any of you anymore. Go away," Katya says.

"Bye!" Alaska says.

Sharon looks at them curiously and says something Alaska can't hear to Manila.

"Can we try the opening again?" Katya asks. "I think I've got it now." 

And that's that. For the moment.

<><><>

"Left, right, left, left," Katya says. "Bring your arms into it."

After the meet and greet, in the dressing room, everyone else is chatting and laughing and changing and packing, and somebody's blasting what sounds like a gayest hits of the eighties playlist. Which is why Alaska is dancing, still in drag, and Katya is directing her, and no one else is paying them any attention. 

"No, no, a little shuffle and then a turn, like this," Katya says, demonstrating. "Stop! Stand there where you are."

"Before you go too far," Alaska sings along, laughing and following Katya's steps. "You're totally making this up as you go along," she says.

"Dance, my puppet, dance," Katya says, grinning.

So Alaska does one of her death drop fakeouts and Katya decides to copy her, both of them giggling. It's stupid and weird and _them_ and Katya loves it.

She lies on her back, hands propping up her hips, one leg askew in the air. It's an intentionally bad imitation of something Alaska's done on stage.

"That's my move, you cunt," Alaska says.

"Not anymore." Katya raises her other leg, putting them at gymnast angles, and then opens them wide into a split. "See?" she says. "Mine, all mine."

"Oh, okay, you can have it." Alaska sighs dramatically.

Katya claps her hands together in glee and rolls onto her side, facing Alaska.

"I expect something in return, though," Alaska says, also shifting onto her side.

"Ooh! What?"

"I have no idea," Alaska says, low. "I'll let you know."

There's something in her voice. Katya can't place it, but she finds her eyes darting down to Alaska's lips, and she could swear Alaska darts her tongue out to wet them. _Oh,_ Katya thinks.

But there are other people in the room, and Katya's not sure she saw what she saw. She's tempted to run her fingers through Alaska's blond hair, which she does all the time. It's too intimate here, somehow.

Instead she reaches out to squeeze Alaska's hand. Alaska squeezes back.

"What are you two lovebirds doing over there?" someone says loudly from the mirrors. Katya doesn't know who and doesn't care.

Alaska shouts, "For the last time, we are not fucking!" and the room dissolves into laughter and loving insults, just like it does every night.

But Katya catches Alaska's eye as they help each other up, and Alaska wets her lips again. Which, Katya thinks, answers that question quite nicely.


	9. Chapter 9

When they get back to the hotel, they make their way to Alaska's room, without consciously deciding which one to go to. Katya's heart is fluttering in her stomach as Alaska opens the door.

Inside, Alaska turns to her, twisting her hands together as if she needs to keep them from acting without her consent, and says, "I really wanted to kiss you."

"You licked your lips, you bitch," Katya says.

"Did I? You were staring."

"I'm always staring at you."

"Same tbh," Alaska says.

"That," Katya says, "is laughable, because you have common sense, but-"

"Katya, get back on topic, please."

Katya asks, fluttering her false lashes, "What was the topic again?"

"Kissing," Alaska says. "It was kissing."

"Oh, right." 

They share a big smile. Then Katya steps closer and lays a hand on Alaska's cheek, and Alaska's hand curls into Katya's boy hair, and they both lean in. The angle is awkward at first, but that's quickly fixed.

Their lips touch softly, sweetly, but in moments they're full-on snogging. Alaska's tongue feels perfect in Katya's mouth, first gentle, then forceful like she's laying a claim. Katya sighs into it, losing track of time, of any sound other than their lips and quickening breaths.

They break apart eventually, resting their foreheads together, hands on one another's necks and faces.

"Kadya," Alaska says.

"Al," Katya says.

Alaska snorts, which is perfect, and Katya grins into another kiss.

It's a long, luscious time before Katya senses them moving into hot and heavy territory, before she feels her hands itching to wander. She pulls away to look Alaska in the eye.

"This is going places if I don't go back to my room right now," she says. 

Alaska opens her mouth to speak, but Katya covers it with her hand. "Don't get me wrong, I love the places. I very much want to go to all the places."

"Just not tonight," Alaska says, muffled, under Katya's hand.

"I mean, with anyone else I'd be on my knees already," Katya says. "But I kind of want to be able to look you in the eye in the morning, you know?"

Alaska pulls Katya's hand away from her face, and doesn't let go. "Squirrels?"

"No." Katya's grateful for the question, but no. She shakes her head. "No squirrels. Absolutely no squirrels. An astounding and complete lack of squirrels, actually."

"Good. Okay."

"Okay?"

"Katya. Yes, it's okay. I get it."

"I can't decide if I'm disappointed that you're not disappointed," Katya says, making a face.

"My dick is disappointed. The rest of me also wants to be able to look you in the eye."

"Oh, well, that's all right, then," Katya says.

Pecking her on the cheek, Alaska says, "Go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."

Katya starts for the door, then turns around. "But we can do more of this tomorrow, right? We should definitely do a lot more of this."

"Definitely," Alaska says.

<><><>

If she's honest with herself, Alaska is a bit disappointed. But it's only, she decides as she gets into the shower, because she's so used to instant gratification. 

Katya's not a pretty boy she picked up at a club, or even a hot date she might want to get serious with. It's different. Everything with Katya is different.

Everything with Katya should be different.

Alaska surprises herself by not wanting to jack off. She thinks about Katya's lips, and Katya's voice and her laugh and her very tight ass. She thinks about how she isn't looking for another high profile, gay famous relationship.

She thinks about Katya's hummingbird brain, and her own lagging only slightly behind. She thinks about how much they could miss if they aren't paying attention, how quickly they could burn through each other.

She thinks about the sweet anticipation she's feeling right now, and then she thinks: They should absolutely do more of that, a lot more of that. But they should also do more of this.

<><><>

Alaska sleeps for just a few hours, but it's already well into morning when she gets up and finds a text from Katya, time stamped an hour earlier. It says, "Come by when you're up and we can order breakfast?"

Alaska smiles and pulls on some clothes. When she knocks on Katya's door, she hears a muffled, "It's open." Inside, she finds Katya at the bathroom sink.

"Morning, beautiful," Katya says through her toothpaste, drooling a little on her bare chest. 

Alaska grabs a tissue and wipes it off. "Good morning to you, too." 

She leans against the door while Katya spits, rinses, and stands up with a big grin. Then Katya's reaching for her and they're kissing languidly, both of them minty fresh.

"Wintermint?" Katya asks, licking her lips. 

"Spearmint, I think."

"I like it," Katya says. "Go get the menu, anything you want. I'm so hungry I could eat an entire state."

And Alaska likes the sound of that a lot, but she came here to say something. "I liked last night," she starts.

"Ooh, so did I."

"I mean afterwards. Or all of it. All night. And then lying in bed, thinking about your lips."

"And my tongue? I give good tongue," Katya says, leering. She sits on the bed, patting the space next to her. Alaska perches on a chair instead.

"You do," Alaska agrees, "but I was thinking. You know how, when you eat really good chocolate, sometimes you just want to let it melt on your tongue so you can enjoy it longer?"

"Am I the chocolate in this scenario?"

"Yes," Alaska says, "but not the way you're thinking."

Katya looks at her pensively, looks at her with that laser focus she gets sometimes. It makes Alaska feel transparent. It's not a negative feeling, not with Katya, but Alaska's pulse starts to race. She breathes in deep.

Finally, Katya nods. "You want to take it slow."

"Yes," Alaska says. "That."

"I knew it," Katya says so quickly that Alaska knows she's been set up for this punchline, "you _are_ a woman."

"Obviously," Alaska says.

"Wait, that was fucking sexist, wasn't it? Shit."

"It was really fucking sexist," Alaska says fondly.

"Shit," Katya says again. Then, teasing: "Anticipation kink? Edge kink?"

"How is this edging?"

"Al," Katya says with an eye roll.

"You're adorable," Alaska tells her. "No, no kink. Well, yes, kinks, but not this time."

"I'm putting a bookmark in that to talk about later."

"Good. You should."

" _Al_ ," Katya says again.

"Just," Alaska says. "It was nice. And this might be the least gay thing I've ever said in my life, but I want to keep it in my head for a while. Before we go to, what did you call it? The places."

"I do like chocolate," Katya says, and tilts her head again. "Can I think of it as an anticipation kink? Because I've never tried that one before."

Alaska hides a smile; it's more difficult than usual. "Absolutely," she says, and pulls out one of her Snatch Game voices. "You can think whatever you want to think, baby."

"Taking the slow train," Katya sings, intentionally off-key. She leans into the space between them. "Making every single stop."

"That's not a song," Alaska says, teasing.

"It is now," Katya says. She leans until she falls off the bed, and then Alaska just has to kiss her, for a long, long time.


	10. Chapter 10

The rest of the tour, 43 whole days, is dreamy, hazy, perfect. Alaska keeps thinking about Katya's mouth, pretty much all the time, and at night they hide out and make out. In dressing rooms, their eyes meet in the mirror. On planes and buses, they sleep with their heads together. _("You drooled on me!" Katya texts her once. "If you don't approve of my saliva we might have a problem," Alaska texts back.)_

Katya never, ever complains about the slow train. She even seems to be enjoying it as much as Alaska is.

Alaska wonders, sometimes, if this is how straight couples used to do it. Obviously, now, everybody falls into bed with everybody, and gay men of the past never had the luxury of time. But old fashioned dating, the hands off before marriage crap? Maybe there was something to that.

Because the strange truth is that she's never felt more comfortable, or more in control of herself, at this stage of a relationship. It doesn't have that giddy high that is always followed, eventually, by a letdown and a bottle. Instead it has a solidity, and a confidence, and a warm glow. 

It also has a near constant stream of gleeful tongue and kiss emojis from Katya, which continues whether they're apart, or across the same room, or even when they're sitting next to each other. Alaska laughs at every one.

<><><>

"I hear you're still spending a lot of time with Katya," Roxxxy texts Alaska, with four wink emojis.

"I love that bitch, but more than a few hours and I'm down with a headache," Gia tells her on facetime.

"You look so happy when you're in the same room and it makes my dead, cynical heart actually beat," Manila says after a show.

Alaska changes the subject every time.

<><><>

"You are both fucking insane," Trixie tells Katya.

"That is both factually and metaphorically true," Katya says, "and I don't know why you're choosing now to tell me about it."

Trixie hangs up on her.

Katya hasn't stopped laughing when Trixie facetimes back and says, "First, don't fuck with her, she's nice. Second, don't let her fuck with you."

"There is absolutely no factual or metaphorical fucking going on," Katya says.

"And third, when the factual fucking happens-"

"If," Katya says.

"When," Trixie insists. "When it happens, you have to tell me everything. I'm desperate for porn."

<><><>

They're walking back to their hotel in a summer storm, the kind that will end a heatwave, the kind all the locals have been waiting for for days. Katya holds out her arms, throws her head back to take in the rain, and sighs happily.

Alaska watches her for a moment, looks around, and then drags her into an alley.

"What?" Katya says. She's drenched, dripping, and she blinks to get the water and makeup out of her eyes.

"I heard you like dumpsters," Alaska says, steering Katya up against a filthy brick wall.

"I like the sound of that," Katya says. "Do you want to get in there with me, or?"

"Slut," Alaska says, and kisses Katya until the rain lets up, and the temperature drops, and they have to run the rest of the way back to stay warm. 

<><><>

At the end of rehearsal, Katya keeps Alaska back while all the others leave the stage. She sneaks behind the theater curtains, gesturing for Alaska to follow.

Alaska goes without complaint, a huge, sly smile on her face.

"Oh my God," Katya squeals. "Are you Alaska Thunderfuck?"

"I am," Alaska says regally. "Are you a fan, young man?"

"Actually," Katya says, "I've never heard of you. But I'd really like to touch your lips with my lips and maybe my tongue. Can I do that?"

"Oh, alright," Alaska says. "Anything for a non-fan."

<><><>

There are lots of places to sneak off to on a month and a half tour--a creaky stairwell in a club; a hotel gym in the middle of the night; deserted tourist spots after hours--and they're determined to find every one.

<><><>

After a week of five shows in five days in five different cities, they're all grateful for an early flight that gets them to the next hotel by 10:30 AM. The manager is kind enough to let them in before the official check-in time, and they all sigh in relief.

"We need food," Katya says, appearing in Alaska's room after a quick visit to her own. She's changed into fresh clothes and she's yawning.

"We need sleep more," Alaska says.

Katya yawns again. "I should probably argue with that, but I don't think I can." 

"Don't," Alaska says. "Arguing with me never gets you anywhere. Stay."

They're too tired to take off anything but their shoes. They climb into the bed and they're both asleep in minutes.

Alaska wakes up first for once, and checks the clock to find they've been out for a couple hours. It should be enough, but she's still sleepy, and Katya's still dead to the world. Katya's lying on her back, her jaw hanging open, eyes moving behind her lids and the fingers of one hand twitching on the blanket. Alaska wonders what the dream is about, and can't bear to interrupt it.

She checks her phone, sees nothing that needs to be dealt with immediately, and decides she's too comfortable to move. She snuggles closer to Katya instead, laying a hand on her chest.

The next time she opens her eyes things are back to normal, with Katya staring at her like she's the most fascinating creature on earth.

"I'm so glad you're up," Katya says. "I'm _starving_. Do you want to order something, or go out?"

"You didn't have to wait," Alaska says. "You could have gone out and brought something back."

"Nah," Katya says. 

"Out," Alaska decides, because Katya looks too delicious, and they don't kiss unless they're vertical.

Katya bounces up and yanks Alaska to the edge of bed by the arm.

"Ow!" Alaska complains. "What the fuck?"

"Food," Katya says, crouching to tie her shoes. "You're about to get unbearable. I can see it in your eyes."

Alaska can feel it, too. If she doesn't eat soon she'll be a nightmare. But she says, "I am not!"

"Whatever, bitch, let's go." Katya grabs Alaska's shoes and throws the door open. 

Right at that second, Detox and Manila are walking past Alaska's room. They look inside, at Alaska still sitting on the bed, and Detox says, "We are talking about this later."

"I need to feed her before she turns into a pumpkin," Katya says.

"Yeah, you go do that," Manila says, and they keep walking.

Katya holds Alaska's shoes up like bait.

"Why do I put up with you?" Alaska asks, but she's smiling. She can't help it.

<><><>

They're in Vancouver, it's summer, and there's salt water in the air. They go to a fancy sandwich place Alaska's been to before and linger over the table when they're finished eating, talking about everything and nothing.

Some of the customers are still eyeing them, trying to figure out who they are, because two employees asked them for pictures earlier. A man in a poorly fitted suit even asks the cashier if they're "actors, or something."

"They're drag queens," the cashier says, with an air of _what is wrong with you_ that makes Katya smile. "From America?" the cashier adds.

The man makes a sound of disapproval, and leaves.

"Was that because we're gay, or because we're American?" Katya asks.

"Hard to tell," Alaska says, laughing.

"Oh, don't worry, it's because you're American," says an elderly man one table over.

"Thank goodness for that," Alaska says drily.

"Can't blame them, really," Katya says.

Alaska says, "I'd hate us, too," and the old man gives them two thumbs up.

<><><>

They wander a little, afterwards. They look in shop windows and take note of street style, buy snacks and something to heat up after the show. They browse separately in a used bookstore, and come upon one another again in the art section, deep in a little warren of shelves.

Katya steps close and smiles, and says, "Can I?"

Alaska rolls her eyes. "Of course you can. You don't have to ask."

She sighs as their lips meet, wraps her arms around Katya, enjoys the moment and forgets to care whether anyone will see. She's wanted to do this all afternoon.

Katya sighs when they finish. "Guess we'd better go back, huh?"

"In a minute," Alaska says, because she has to do that again. And again.


	11. Chapter 11

Detox finally manages to corner Alaska at breakfast. "You're totally fucking her," she says.

"I'm not," Alaska says.

"Bullshit. You should have seen the way she was looking at you when you were recording last night."

"How was she looking at me?" Alaska says innocently.

"You know exactly how. So you're joined at the hip and you have no eyes for anyone else in the room, but you're still not fucking?"

Alaska's amused by the disbelief in her friend's eyes. "Nope." 

Detox shakes her head. "You're both nuts. You deserve each other."

"Well, no one else can put up with our brilliance and lightning quick wit," Alaska says.

"Fuck you," Detox says with a smile. 

"Love you, D," Alaska says.

"Love you too, Lasky. And you really should fuck her. She can pull her legs over her head, for fuck's sake."

<><><>

Katya's watching Alaska shoot her show after a meet and greet, and Katya's thinking about Ginger.

 _Tell me you don't have a fetish for those long blond locks,_ Ginger had said. Katya had made a joke of it, but it's true. It's always been true. Even when they barely knew each other, Katya couldn't keep her hands out of Alaska's hair. And Alaska had _let_ her.

Alaska's obsessed with it, too, of course. She's always combing it with her fingers, or brushing it, or repositioning it by millimeters. She's doing it now, holding her phone with one hand and playing with her hair with the other, while giving Kim and Naomi the spotlight in front of the young fans who've circled around them. 

Katya often watches Alaska film her show, but she rarely appears on screen. She stays off to the side, usually surrounded by her own fans. But tonight most of the fans have already gone, and the few who are left seem more interested in the fresh meat from later seasons. It doesn't happen often, and Katya's happy to take advantage of the calm.

Sharon's also being ignored, and she slips in next to Katya on the sofa half hidden between a potted plant.

"You're good for each other," Sharon says. "I don't know why you guys are being so shy about it."

There's no point in playing coy with Sharon. Sharon doesn't miss much. "Is that," Katya says, looking at her sideways. "Is that some weird blessing? Because we're not-"

"Please," Sharon says. "I couldn't tell Alaska what to do even when I thought I _could_ tell Alaska what to do. And we were so fucked up by the end anyway, it's a miracle we didn't kill each other."

Katya knows this already. _It seems like you both tried,_ she thinks.

"You're fucked up, too," Sharon says.

"Oh, completely."

"But you're not fucked up together, you know?"

"That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me," Katya says.

"I mean it. Whatever you two are up to, and I'm the only one who's not going to ask, by the way," Sharon says. "It could just be hot yoga, for all I know. Whatever it is, it's working for her."

"Mmm," Katya says.

It's strange, because for as long as they've been friends, real friends and not just friendly coworkers, Katya's only seen this Alaska: Alaska who doesn't doubt herself unless she's overtired or over stressed; Alaska who knows exactly who she is and what she wants and why; Alaska who makes Katya feel more sure of herself, too. 

For Katya, there's no change. But for other people, it seems to be big.

She tells Sharon, "Michelle asked her if she was drinking again."

"She didn't!"

"She did."

"That," and Sharon gestures to Alaska, who's smiling, and glowing with confidence, and using her fame to plug the younger queens. "That is not drunk Alaska."

"I know," Katya says. Alaska had been surprised but not bothered; Katya's the one who dwelled on it. "Michelle meant well," she says.

Alaska's finished her filming, and she looks suspiciously over at the two of them.

"Her ears are burning, look," Katya says. She gives Alaska a big smile and a little wave.

Alaska sneers at them and holds up her nails like claws.

"Michelle's always been protective over Alaska," Sharon says. 

"I think that might have something to do with the two of you trying to kill each other."

Sharon laughs. "Guilty as charged. But also, Alaska's taking over when Ru retires."

"I know, right?" Katya says, thrilled to find a fellow believer. "People say you, or Raja, or Bianca, but."

"But we'd all make the children cry. It's Alaska." 

"She's fucking perfect."

"I'm glad one of us thinks so," Sharon jokes.

"Perfect for the job. Jesus, Shannon."

They watch as Alaska works her way through the thinning crowd. "What are you two talking about?" she asks.

"You," Sharon says.

"I knew it!" Alaska says.

"And how you're the one true heir to the Ru-pire," Katya says.

Alaska rolls her eyes. 

"Shh," Sharon says. "She doesn't like to hear shit like that." 

"Yes, she does," Katya says. "She just doesn't want us to know she likes it."

"I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now," Alaska says.

"Well, now I know which dead meme I'll be sending you all week," Katya says.

Alaska clasps her hands together. "Send me the Mercutio one? I love that one."

Katya pulls out her phone.

"I'm going to go throw up," Sharon says, standing. "And then call my boyfriend." She whispers something to Alaska that makes Alaska scoff and shove her away.

Katya stands up and tugs on Alaska's hair, and Alaska smirks.

"You need to get over this thing you have with my wigs," Alaska says. "I feel like you're going to start stealing them and sending ransom notes."

"I love it when you give me ideas," Katya says.

<><><>

"I spy something beginning with C," Katya texts across the table, while they wait to board their flight.

It's 5:30 in the morning and Alaska's barely awake, but she knows where this is going. She looks up from her phone to Katya's smug face and types, "curmudgeon."

 **Katya:** wrong!  
**Alaska:** cantaloupe?  
**Alaska:** ceiling  
**Alaska:** can of Red Bull  
**Katya:** lame  
**Alaska:** coffee  
**Katya:** lamer  
**Alaska:** cocksucker  
**Katya:** yes, but no  
**Alaska:** Catastrophe (you)  
**Katya:** Aw  
**Alaska:** chipmunk  
**Alaska:** camp?  
**Katya:** No, I'm serving glamour today, bitch.  
**Alaska:** I give up.  
**Katya:** CONSPICUOUS CROSSDRESSING CALIFORNIA CWEEN CHEWING CARROTS!

Katya flails laughing at herself, making everyone nearby, except Alaska, give her dirty looks that she doesn't notice. 

Alaska's pretending not to be charmed. She texts back, "Fuck, I should have guessed that one," and it only makes Katya laugh harder.

"It is too early to be that happy," a middle-aged woman holding two ventis says as she walks by.


	12. Chapter 12

It's a rare evening off, towards the end of the tour, and they're on the small sofa in Katya's room after eating pizza. Alaska's looking at her phone and half watching TV, and Katya's sitting against the armrest, trying to read something in Russian. She keeps getting frustrated and talking to herself while she translates. 

_"Dyermo,"_ Katya says. And a minute later, _"Nam pizdyets!"_

Alaska's been learning Russian swears by assimilation. She pets Katya's toes and Katya flexes them in response.

Katya is one of the most tactile people Alaska has ever known. She mixes fabrics and textures in her looks, switching them up depending on what mood she wants to put herself in. And she likes to be in contact whenever they're alone, even if it's just fingers or shoes barely touching, or, like tonight, the sole of her foot pressing into Alaska's thigh. 

_"Ubliudok!"_

"I think it's time to put the book down, dear," Alaska says.

Katya drops it. "The thing is," she says.

"Yes, Katya, please tell me about the thing."

Katya makes a face at her before breaking into a smile. "The thing is," Katya says, "I like to make it sound like Russian is easy, but it's really, really not."

"I believe you," Alaska says. 

"I hate that it's hard."

"I know you do," Alaska says. Katya likes to be good at things. Not perfect, like Alaska does, but good. "You should have seen me recording that song in nonsense Spanish."

"Yeah, I don't know what you were thinking with that one," Katya teases. 

"Hey!"

"You don't advertise it as one of your talents, though. And Russia is such a hellhole, I'll never really be fluent. I just fake it well."

"You fake it very well," Alaska says, patting Katya's toes again. 

"Stop indulging me," Katya says, and Alaska laughs at her. "You make it too easy."

"What, I should make you suffer?"

Katya heaves a theatrical sigh. "Maybe someday."

Alaska slaps her foot, and Katya yanks it away. So Alaska grabs Katya's hand instead, and uses it to tug Katya across the couch until she's kneeling next to Alaska.

"Kiss me, you fool," Katya says. 

So Alaska does, slowly and carefully, not letting Katya speed up.

The thing is, Alaska thinks as they pull away and lean their foreheads together. The thing is that Katya's brain is so fast--a recording on triple time, a hummingbird's wings--and usually Alaska's happy to get wrapped up in it. But sometimes, like now, Alaska wants to put her on slow motion, to enjoy the moment. 

And then other times, rare times, Alaska's got a niggling, terrifying feeling that Katya could still flit away.

They kiss again, and then Katya lies with her head in Alaska's lap and a happy sigh, and Alaska runs her fingers through Katya's hair.

"Love your vagina, gurl," Alaska says.

"Gurl, I love your pussy," Katya says.

<><><>

When the tour ends, Alaska's off on a cruise full of gays and confused, old, straight people, and Katya gets to go home for a while. She's sewing the last seam on a new dress made from fabric that says _I'm a star_ in Russian when her phone alerts her to a text from Alaska.

It's just a picture, of the inside of a suitcase she recognizes, with a big, angry, red arrow. Mixed in with the bags where Alaska lovingly stores her feather boas is something that looks very familiar.

The next text says, "Why is there a fucking dead raccoon in my luggage?"

Laughing while she types, Katya replies, "I didn't want you to get lonely?"

"Rotted cunt," Alaska texts back with a heart.

"No, honestly, I had no idea. I haven't finished unpacking yet." Katya thinks for a minute and adds, "Hey, do you have that black lace bustier you love so much? I can't find it."

"I don't love it, and I don't have it." 

And Katya's notifications go quiet for a while. Then she gets another picture of the inside of a suitcase.

"Wait," Alaska texts. "I do have it. What the hell."

Katya's delighted, but she types, "You've been stealing my shit. Why are you stealing my shit?"

"Excuse you, you packed half my stuff."

"I'm nice like that."

The next picture is a selfie of Alaska in the bustier, over her button-down. "Can I wear this?"

"That you can wear," Katya texts back. "I expect my BFF to be returned in pristine condition and with no ransom notes."

Alaska doesn't send ransom notes, but she does send pictures of Cheryl in compromising positions all over the ship, and for weeks afterwards.

Somehow, Katya doesn't mind.


	13. Chapter 13

In October, they both have layovers in Houston that should match up, if they're lucky. And they are.

Katya waits at the gate, checking the time on her phone too often. Alaska's the nineteenth person off the plane. She's wearing a turquoise Pittsburgh Penguins cap and sunglasses, dressed like a dudebro going to the gym to pick up chicks.

"Nice disguise," Katya says.

"Nice cheap spray tan," Alaska says.

They grin at each other, and Katya drags her by the hand to a corner of the waiting area, behind a pillar.

"Hi," Alaska says, still grinning, as she pulls Katya into a long, tight hug.

Katya sighs. "Nice to see you, too." They separate, and Katya looks around. "Think we're safe?"

Alaska looks around, too. "I think so."

They both smile into a kiss that lasts longer than it probably should, here. But when they pull away, there's still no one looking.

"I love your pussy," Katya says.

"I love your vagina," Alaska says. "How much time do you have?"

They have 35 minutes. They manage to share a quick-bake pizza, go to Starbucks, and talk at high speed in an empty waiting area before Katya has to catch her flight. 

It's not enough, but it's better than nothing.

<><><>

Jujubee walks into the dressing room to hear Katya talking even faster than normal. She recognizes Alaska's voice on the other end.

"Ooh, look, Juju's here!" Katya says, holding up her phone so Jujubee and Alaska can see each other. Katya's in Boston for one night. Juju's not performing, but she'd promised to stop by before the show and buy Katya a seltzer afterwards.

Juju waves. "Hi Alaska."

Alaska's smile is wide and generous. "Jujubee! Long time no see! Keep this one out of trouble, will you?"

"Oh, I absolutely will not be responsible for," she waves a hand in Katya's direction, "that."

"I don't blame you," Alaska says at the same time as Katya says, "You are old and wise." 

"You are two years older than me, bitch," Juju says.

"Katya's old, but she's not wise," Alaska says.

"I agree with that assessment," Katya says. "Talk to you later?" she asks Alaska.

"As soon as I get off stage," Alaska says.

Juju watches them practically coo their goodbyes.

"I heard you two are an item," she says.

"We're a clearance bin special," Katya says. "Ninety-nine cents a pair."

"The right time, the right place," Juju sings. "The right body, the right face. Timber, I'm falling in love."

"Is that Patty fucking Loveless?"

"You don't like that one? Because I've got more. Please help me, I'm falling-"

"Is your needle stuck on country today or something? Who are you, Tracy Martel?"

"Honey, you are a hot mess," Juju says. "And don't think I didn't see that picture on your home screen."

"Wait." Katya blinks at her in the mirror. "Falling in _what_?"

"Gurl, please," Juju says.

"But we're not--we don't even--" Katya spins in her chair to face Juju, looking like she's about to hyperventilate. "No. No, it's too easy. No tears, no insomnia, no freaking out? It doesn't work that way."

"What the hell kind of assholes have you been dating?"

"All of them, apparently," Katya says. She grabs Juju's arm and pulls her closer. "I swear to God, Barbara, I didn't know!"

Juju squints at Katya, trying to figure out if she's telling the truth.

"I didn't!"

"You know what?" Juju says. "I actually believe you."

"We are basically sharing a calendar app," Katya muses. "She keeps editing mine to say, 'call Alaska.' I mean, I also have Trixie's calendar, but that's for legitimate platonic professional reasons. And I don't think I can sleep anymore unless I talk to her first."

"Oh, my God," Juju says. "Look how hopeless and lovesick and crazy you are."

"Oh, my God, I am! How did I miss this? I wonder if she-" Katya covers her mouth with both hands, and her eyes go wide.

Juju just laughs at her. She hasn't seen Alaska in person for a while, definitely not since this thing with Katya started, not that she knows exactly when that was. But she's pretty sure the answer to Katya's unfinished question is yes.

<><><>

Alaska calls after the show, but Katya's thinking too hard to pick up. She hadn't expected Juju to call her out like that, but she's realized in the hours since that it's been lurking at the edge of her consciousness for a while. A very long while.

For years, on and off, Katya's been keeping a journal. It started as a way to keep her sobriety on track, and it still does that. But it's also full of ideas and sketches, whatever she found funny that day, notes to herself, whether she's had more cigarettes than food or vice versa, anything she needs to get out when there's no one around to listen.

She takes a look back at the last few months and she's both surprised and unsurprised to find that it's full of Alaska: Alaska said this, Alaska asked me that, Alaska made me laugh so hard I knocked lunch off the table and the waiter bitched me out. Alaska's in New York or Amsterdam or Chicago and I'm not. I read a funny thing and I need to remember to tell Alaska. She'd even drawn a tattoo design shaped like Alaska the state, and still hadn't put it together. What was wrong with her?

Katya's good at subtlety. It's the big stuff that kicks her in the ass.

She remembers telling Alaska she wanted to fall in love, that night on the mountain when it, they, whatever they are, started. And then they'd gotten distracted and talked about other things, for ages, for months. Maybe her brain had been trying to tell her something, even then.

Maybe it's not so much falling as already crumpled on the floor in a heap.

But it's too easy, she thinks. It's so easy it feels wrong. To be friends, and then closer friends, and then to fall in—-well, to care for someone in a new way. That's how it happens in movies. But it rarely works like that in real life. Never, in Katya's admittedly limited experience. 

She forgets to shower and forgets her makeup and forgets to charge her phone. She falls asleep reading the journal, instead.


	14. Chapter 14

In the morning Katya wakes up after check-out time to find her phone dead, three missed calls, and fifteen texts. She feels awful.

 **Alaska:** Katya  
**Alaska:** Kati  
**Alaska:** Kadya  
**Alaska:** Kataya  
**Alaska:** Yekaterina  
**Alaska:** I can't spell the rest of your fucking name.  
**Alaska:** Catastrophe  
**Alaska:** I'm bored, text me.  
**Alaska:** Katie  
**Alaska:** Kitty Louise  
**Alaska:** Cody  
**Alaska:** Katushka  
**Alaska:** Katuuuuuuushka  
**Alaska:** Bitch you are making me worry.  
**Alaska:** Kaaaaaaatyaaaaaaaa

"Shit," Katya says to herself. She heads for the shower, thinking of what's going to happen to her skin if she doesn't take care of it right this minute, but she's interrupted by her brain calling up something Trixie's pointed out more than once: it's when she doesn't hear from Katya that she worries.

Alaska could feel the same as Katya does, she thinks, then reassesses. No, Alaska probably does feel the same. Alaska probably figured it out a long time ago; she's better at this than Katya is. And for all Alaska knows, Katya could have had a line of hot young things in the corridor last night, waiting to jump into her bed. She could have been getting high, she could have been OD-ing in an alley. They talk every fucking day before each of them goes to sleep.

The same number of squirrels, she thinks.

She calls, and doesn't get an answer. It's not a surprise; Alaska has a flight in less than an hour, and she's always in a rush before morning flights.

"Alaska Joanne," she texts instead, not expecting a reply right away. 

**Katya:** Alaska  
**Katya:** Alabama  
**Katya:** Arizona  
**Katya:** Arkansas  
**Katya:** Alberta  
**Katya:** Indiana  
**Katya:** Oklahoma  
**Katya:** Minnesota  
**Katya:** Delaware  
**Katya:** Alfredo  
**Katya:** Aloysius  
**Katya:** Al  
**Katya:** Alllllllll

"Sorry, got distracted and fell asleep," Katya types, and then deletes it. 

"Miss you gurl," she sends instead.

And then: "My brain was on overdrive last night and I forgot to charge my phone, sorry!" It's the truth, or most of the truth, but it reads like an excuse. For once she can't think of anything else to say. 

She clicks send, gets in the shower, and then gets out, wet and soapy, to add, "I really am sorry and I really do miss you."

After she dries off she doesn't put her phone down once until it dings with a text from Alaska. Katya's heart flutters, and she realizes it's not the first time.

"Miss you too, gurl," the text says. "Call you when I land xoxo."

Katya texts back a tongue, a long row of heart eyes, and a dozen kisses, and says to herself, _Yeah, you're not in trouble at all._

<><><>

Katya has two shows in Toronto, and Alaska has a couple days off after a show in Detroit, so Alaska rents a car and drives up in the middle of the night. _("It's four hours at least. Are you sure you want to do that?" Katya asked. "You haven't lived in California long enough," Alaska said.)_

It's near dawn when Katya hears the knock, and she feels like she's been asleep for ten minutes. She unlocks the door and falls right back into bed.

"You're pretty," she says. "But I can't be awake yet."

"Okay," Alaska says, sounding amused.

Katya thinks she feels another body slide into the bed, but she's asleep too soon to be sure.

When she wakes up again there's no Alaska, and Katya sits up and looks around, confused. There's a book on the other side of the bed and that's the only evidence.

She grabs her phone and is just starting to type when she hears the key card, and the door opens.

"I thought maybe I dreamt you," she tells Alaska.

"Nope. Sorry. I'm real," Alaska says. Her jeans are skintight and she's wearing that stupid furry hat from Aspen. She holds out a coffee and Katya pretends to take it, but grasps Alaska's wrist instead.

"No!" Alaska laughs as Katya drags her onto the bed. "At least take this first, I don't have enough hands."

Katya takes the cup but ignores it, and scoots closer to Alaska. "I am so happy to see you," she says, kissing her on the cheek. "Thank you for bringing me breakfast."

"Don't thank me until you've tasted it," Alaska says. She smiles softly and her eyes meet Katya's for a few beats. 

"Al, I-" 

And then Alaska's fingers are on Katya's chin and her tongue on Katya's lips.

It's perfect, it's _fire_ , and Katya can feel energy thrumming through Alaska in a way she never has before. Maybe it's her, maybe she's just seeing things differently now, or maybe something's changed for Alaska, too. Time stretches and heat rises, and Katya's about to pull away to see if they're both ready for where this seems to be going.

But it's Alaska who tears her lips from Katya's and brings their foreheads together instead. It's Alaska who's gulping down shivery breaths. It's Alaska whose eyes are screwed tight shut when Katya opens her own, Alaska who seems to be fighting against something--herself, Katya realizes.

"Al?" She touches Alaska's neck gently, not wanting to spook her. "You okay?"

Alaska nods against her forehead. "I need," she says, and breathes, and swallows. "Not here. We need to stop."

"Okay," Katya says, smiling her biggest smile as Alaska stands up. She hadn't expected it to escalate like that, anyway, and she needs Alaska to know that it really is okay. She never wants to overstep the boundaries Alaska's set for herself.

So she picks up the bag of breakfast Alaska had dropped on the bed and says, "Presents!" Inside there are bagels and cream cheese and she's debating which flavor she wants--she can never decide until they're right in front of her--when she hears Alaska laughing.

"What?"

"Everything," Alaska says, shaking her head. "You."

Katya smiles her biggest smile again, and adds some eyebrow action this time. "You're everything, darling," she says. "Now, which one of these do you want?"

<><><>

Later, Katya makes Alaska do yoga, and they have lunch, and go to the shoe museum, and Alaska has fun helping Katya paint her face back at the hotel. _("Hindering!" Katya says, but she doesn't make Alaska stop.)_ She puts her own, pale pink lipstick on Katya, and likes it.

"I look like a whore whose pimp makes her pretend to be underage," Katya says. 

"You _are_ a whore."

Katya winks. "Not so much lately," she says. 

"Stop that," Alaska says, although stopping is the exact opposite of what she wants Katya to do.

"Gonna get your lipstick all over you," Katya says, and kisses Alaska on both cheeks and the backs of both hands.

"Ewwwww," Alaska complains, laughing. 

She doesn't go backstage. She doesn't tell anyone she's there. She hides in the shadows, watching two of their friends and the two Canadian queens, but mostly Katya. 

The slow splits are really getting to her. She's downloaded videos of Katya's performances to see those splits whenever she wants to. And Katya's wearing one of Alaska's favorite tops, with only black panties over her tights. Alaska fidgets and shifts her feet and almost, but not quite, wishes she was up there, too.

The image of the two of them bumping and grinding and flirting and laughing on stage fills her brain. _You're in deep,_ she says to herself.

She wasn't looking for another gay famous relationship, but she seems to be in one. No matter how slow they take it, or how weak and defenseless it makes her feel. 

<><><>

When the show's over, the two of them escape to the streets, buy falafel from a late night take-out place, and eat it while they walk in fresh snow. Alaska pulls Katya close in a deserted little park and kisses her, while Alaska's sandwich dribbles tahini on Katya's favorite fur boots.

"You're paying to replace those," Katya says. But she kisses Alaska again anyway.

"I'll buy you all the shoes you want," Alaska says, and Katya shrieks with glee.

Later, as they walk back towards the hotel, Katya asks, "Do you want to get another room? I'll pay for it."

Alaska's eyes are burning, suddenly. "No," she says, "I want to stay. I just."

"Cross my heart, I won't touch you," Katya says lightly, holding up her hands.

"It's not you I'm worried about," Alaska says, and finds herself blushing in the cold air.

_(When Katya gets to the next city, she'll find Cheryl and the pink lipstick in her suitcase, and she'll wear them both that night.)_


	15. Chapter 15

"Still no factual fucking?" Trixie asks Katya on the phone.

"What, you don't care about the metaphorical fucking anymore? Katya says.

"I'll take your deflection as a no," Trixie says.

There are thousands of miles and more three months between Katya and Alaska, and Trixie knows that. "Bitch, you know there isn't," Katya says, laughing.

"Hey, a girl can dream."

<><><>

A girl has to dream, though a girl tries hard not to. It's only been a few weeks since they saw each other in Canada, and it's going to be a very long few months. 

When it was just kissing, the kissing was perfect. But now that Katya understands it was more than excruciatingly drawn out foreplay, now that she's had the briefest taste of Alaska unwound and losing control, she's _dying_.

But she doesn't want to take any chances. 

The whole gay world, plus Reddit, saw Alaska get burned in public, twice. Katya's not going to do a single thing before Alaska says she's ready.

Not to mention that they're both addicts, and every 12-step or dual diagnosis program in the world says that beginning and ending relationships are high risk activities. They both need to be completely comfortable with what's going on, and that's okay. 

So Katya's brain has no problem waiting. But her body has a problem. Her body has a big, big problem.

She's not taking chances. But she does text Alaska every slang word she knows for vagina in three different languages.

The last one is pussy, and Alaska texts back, "vagina xoxo."

The next day, Alaska texts her dozens of ways to say penis, but she's more generous than Katya is, so she leaves plenty for Katya to reply with.

<><><>

Alaska's in New York, doing a round of meetings and fittings. Turning on her phone after spending the whole afternoon in an office, she finds that Katya has been busy. 

**Katya:** Look, I wrote a song!  
**Katya:** I need you to set it to music though because you're good at that.  
**Katya:** Ready?  
**Katya:** Okay!  
**Katya:** no caps because art  
**Katya:** you can admire it from afar  
**Katya:** you can admire it in a bar  
**Katya:** you can admire it on a screen  
**Katya:** you can hate it and be mean  
**Katya:** you can admire it on stage  
**Katya:** in an alcohol induced haze  
**Katya:** (it is pretty fucking awesome after all)  
**Katya:** but whatever you do  
**Katya:** do not grab my motherfucking tuck  
**Katya:** motherfucker  
**Katya:** THE END  
**Katya:** I think it's some of my best work  
**Katya:** lines are now open for constructive or corruptive criticism  
**Katya:** Call meeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Alaska's amused and angry at the same time. She texts back, "Oh, honey, again?" and then decides that's not enough. She opens facetime instead.

"Yes," Katya says when she answers. "Again!" She's outside, somewhere in Amsterdam, on what looks like a park bench, chain smoking. She still has traces of makeup around her eyes. 

People do this to Katya. Alaska's cultivated an aloofness a and a wardrobe that can make people think twice, though it does still happen to her. Katya is just naturally Katya and everyone she meets wants to love her and touch her, all the time. She somehow makes each of her fans feel like she knows them personally, and their eyes light up just from being near her. It's one of the things Alaska admires her for, especially knowing now that Katya is secretly a bit of an introvert.

None of it gives anyone the right to molest her.

"I'm sorry," Alaska says. "Men are disgusting."

"They really are. Why are we attracted to them again?"

"It might have something to do with loving dick," Alaska says very seriously, "but I can't be sure. Was he straight?"

"Oh, he was definitely straight. What the fuck do they think they're going to find down there?"

"God knows," Alaska says.

"God doesn't know. She's a woman, she's above all this."

Alaska smiles. "Are you really upset, or are you being dramatic?" She asks.

Katya stands up and curtsies. "I'm being dramatic, your honor. It keeps me busy. For my next act, I will clutch my pearls and faint on my fainting couch."

"Yass, gurl," Alaska says, snapping her fingers. "Send me your creeps. I'll break their hands for you."

"Oh, Miss Thunderfun, the things you say," Katya says, fanning herself with her hand. 

It's then that Alaska notices someone watching her. She's still standing near the entrance to the building she just left, with hundreds of people walking by. "Got to go. I've been spotted," she tells Katya.

"Leave me alone in my hour of pain, why don't you," Katya says. 

Now it's three fans, and Alaska dials the charisma up to high as they ask her if she is who she is.

While she talks to them, Katya texts so many kiss emojis that Alaska has to turn her phone back off.

"My manager," she explains.

<><><>

The anger clings to Alaska for days. Wednesday, Thursday, and she's back on the road. Friday, and Katya's told her that she's over it, but Alaska isn't. Then on Saturday she's out for lunch with Jinkx, and she can't stop herself from bringing it up. "Do straight guys grab your genitals?"

Jinkx's expression clearly says _what the fuck_. But she says, "I don't usually get close enough to let them. Why? Did somebody make a move on you in the meet and greet last night?"

"No, it was Katya."

"Katya made a move on you in the meet and greet?" Jinkx says mischievously.

"I wish," Alaska says. "No, it was Katya's genitals and some dude in Amsterdam and I don't know why I'm still annoyed." It happens a lot, to a lot of queens. It's an occupational hazard.

Their food arrives, and they thank the waiter, and Alaska's running on adrenaline. She eats too fast.

Jinkx watches her chew for a while and then asks, "Are you jealous?"

"Because nobody's tried that on me lately? No."

"I don't think that's what I meant."

"Then what did," Alaska starts. "Oh. That's a really good question, actually."

<><><>

She thinks about it for the rest of the day, and through the show at night, and doesn't mention it to Katya, because she's still thinking. But really, the answer was obvious as soon as she understood what Jinkx was asking.

Alaska's angry on Katya's behalf, because it's rude. 

But she's also angry on her own behalf, because no one else should be touching Katya's dick.

She wants to be the only one who's allowed. She wants to taste it and to feel it on her tongue. She wants to know how and where Katya likes to be touched. She wants to know how Katya jerks off, how Katya feels about teeth during blow jobs.

It's surprising and overwhelming, and it's not like she didn't know she wanted Katya. It's not like she didn't know where they were headed. It's not like she hasn't had fantasies about traveling together and going home together and shopping for furniture and painting the kitchen some ungodly color of Katya's choosing.

It's the visceral, primal, animalistic feeling of _mine_.


	16. Chapter 16

It's breakfast time in Melbourne and dinner time in Glasgow, and they're sharing room service and _Invasion of the Saucer Men_ on facetime. Katya's hair is wet and while they talk and eat and comment on the film and while she asks about Alaska's schedule for the day, Katya's also going through suitcases, and throwing things on the bed that she might wear tonight, and talking about changing up one of her songs. 

Alaska finds herself staring and grinning at how very Katya it is: why do one thing at a time when you can do twenty? She feels the warmth in her chest that she only associates now with one Katya Zamolodchikova, high class Russian whore, and if Katya turned around right now she'd see the mushiest look on Alaska's face.

Katya does turn around, but she's looking at the shoes in her hands instead of at the screen. They're from two different pairs, and Alaska says, "The sparkly ones."

"Really?" Katya tilts her head to the side and wrinkles her nose in the way she does when she's thinking deeply and about to go off on any one of 50 different tangents, and Alaska makes a decision.

"I'm sending you something later," Alaska says.

"Ooh, what?" Katya says like it's the best news she's ever heard. She focuses back on the screen. "Shoes?"

Alaska feels simultaneously like she can't meet Katya's eyes, and she can't look away from them. "You'll see," she says.

<><><>

They hang up when Katya has to leave for her show, and Alaska jumps in the shower, where she stands under the spray and forgets what she's doing and stares at the wall. 

She's thinking about how Katya's still never complained about the slow train. 

She's thinking about that morning in Toronto, when Katya was warm and sleepy and looked so delectable in only her underwear, on the white hotel sheets. Alaska wanted her so badly but put a stop to it instead, because she needed to know she could. 

She's thinking about how Katya smiled like it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world, like she understood, and then how Katya looked at her that afternoon like she was the snake and Alaska was the apple, and she still didn't push. 

She's thinking about how that kind of trust might just be what she's wanted all along, and she's thinking she was an idiot for stopping.

Alaska remembers where she is and cleans up quickly. She steps onto the bath mat, and looks at herself in the mirror.

What she should do, what she probably should have done months ago, is facetime Katya and say, _I am head over heels in love with you and it's okay if you're not but I'm pretty sure you are so let's get moving on that._

What she's going to do instead, because no matter how much they both enjoy wearing women's lingerie they are still guys, more or less, is send Katya a dick pic.

<><><>

When Katya sees the picture, she shrieks and jumps up and down until the very Scottish club manager says, "Are you having a stroke?"

"Just good news," Katya says as she replies to Alaska with the tongue emoji. "Family thing."

The manager shakes his head and walks away.

Alaska texts back a kissy heart.

"You're gorgeous," Katya types, "and your dick is gorgeous but for some reason these people want me to go on stage."

"Have fun. Get tips. Buy me something nice."

"I hope you know how painful it is to tuck an erect penis," Katya types. 

Alaska texts her a snowman and a hockey stick and adds, "Ice. Ice is your friend."

Katya tells her to fuck off, and stops herself just in time from changing the lock screen wallpaper on her phone.

<><><>

Alaska finishes packing and goes to the airport and gets on the plane and waits until she knows Katya will be back at the hotel. Then she holds her breath and texts, "Can I touch your tuck?"

"I'm still mad at you," Katya replies immediately. "You'd have to tip me. A lot."

And Alaska's in the middle of typing something about fifty thousand dollars when she gets another text, and she can breathe again.

 **Katya:** ( y e s )

And then Katya sends a picture of her gaff. While she's wearing it, but still. Alaska cackles and figures she deserved that.


	17. Chapter 17

Katya has the night off and they're both lying in bed on opposite ends of the world, Katya about to fall asleep and Alaska putting off getting up.

"You know you still owe me a picture, right?" Alaska says. 

"The first one wasn't enough?"

"The first one was lovely, but it left something out."

"It wasn't lovely. It was sweaty and disgusting and hadn't been washed in days." Katya's trying to look serious, and it's not working.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Alaska says.

"You're 80% disgusting," Katya says. "I could take it now?"

Alaska feels her eyes go wide, and Katya cackles herself into a coughing fit.

"Was that a tease?" Alaska asks.

"No, I'll do it. Unless you'd like to watch me do something else?"

Alaska feels her eyes go even wider. "What is with you tonight?" she says. "Did you have horny juice with your dinner?"

"Tired," Katya says. She's on her side, and she snuggles a little deeper into the pillow. "No filter."

"When have you ever had a filter?"

Katya rolls her eyes and pouts and says, "I hate touring alone." 

She's not alone, not exactly, but she does have different local queens opening for her every night, and not a lot of continuity other than what she does on stage. 

"I know you do," Alaska says. She's with four Ru girls and she feels alone, too.

"Bad things happen when I'm bored," Katya says. "Like offering up my body to some weirdo in Australia on facetime. I don't know whose stupid idea it was to let me out on my own recognizance. Like, ever."

"Honey, you are talking to a man who used to let his boyfriend blow him on stage. I am not a qualified chaperone."

Katya thinks for a moment, finally coming up with, "Partner in crime, buffoonery, absurdity, and straight up tomfoolery?"

"Now that is a position I might be interested in," Alaska says. "Does it come with dental?"

"Send me your resume and I'll think about it." Katya's sleepy smile turns into a completely different one. "So do you want me to do this? It's a limited time offer."

"Send it to me later?" Alaska says. 

"A picture, or a video?"

Alaska takes a deep breath and smirks and says, "Surprise me."

<><><>

Katya sends a picture not long after they hang up, and it's funny (of course) and gorgeous and hot, and Alaska didn't expect to be so disappointed that it's not something else. 

So the next day she does send Katya a resume, with a photo attached, and a note that says, "Enclosed please find proof of my qualifications." 

Katya returns it with a letter.

_Dear Ms. Thunderfun:_

_The firm of Zamolodchikova and Zamolodchikova, Inc., regrets to inform you that we have no openings at this time._

_We have, however, extended an offer to a young slut named Violet Chachki, who has accepted and will begin work next week._

_Bye bitch._

_Yours very sincerely always and forever,_  
_Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, President_

_P.S. Please find enclosed proof that my qualifications are much more impressive than yours._

Alaska has to hide her boner when she gets that, and she has to admit that, yes, Katya's is pretty impressive, too.


	18. Chapter 18

"So what does the firm of Zamo and Zamo, Inc., do, exactly?" Alaska asks on facetime. She's getting ready for a show, and Katya's getting ready for bed.

Katya doesn't want her face to give away how amused she is. She says, "Shame on you for applying for a job without researching the company first. No wonder that bitch didn't hire you."

"That bitch didn't answer my question."

"We trade in pornographic literature," Katya says. "Obviously." _And you could at least leave us a review on Yelp_ , she almost says, but doesn't, because Alaska just might find a way to do it.

<><><>

Christmas in Australia is weird. It's fucking hot, for one thing. They're free on Christmas Day, and they've been invited to what Alaska's been assured will be the world's gayest Christmas barbecue. 

She's trying to decide what to wear--she knew she should have brought more shorts, she knows what the weather is like--when there's a knock on the door of her room. She answers in her underwear.

"Oh, no, I do not need to see that," Ginger says, covering her eyes. 

Alaska grins and says she's sorry and grabs yesterday's shirt to put on.

"I was asked to bring you this," Ginger says, holding out a box. "Special delivery."

"Ooh, what is it?"

"I don't even want to know. It's probably a dildo or something."

"It's from Katya?" Alaska asks, delighted.

"Of course it's from Katya, I am not buying you sex toys."

Alaska looks from Ginger's face to the box, and back up to Ginger. "But I didn't get you anything," she says.

"I do not get paid enough for this," Ginger says. "Wait, I need to send her a picture of the look on your face right now." She takes out her phone, and Alaska poses happily, trying to look especially adorable.

"I'll just leave you alone with whatever that is. See you downstairs."

"Thank you for my special delivery," Alaska calls after her. She shakes the box, but it doesn't give her any clues. 

It's not, unsurprisingly, a dildo. 

It's a Katya prayer candle, and it makes Alaska giggle until it hurts. It's _perfect_.

She's still laughing when she gets a facetime notification. She holds the candle up by her face as she answers.

"You got it!" Katya says, waving her hands around in excitement.

"Did you really make Ginger lug this around for a month?"

"I gave her a blowjob on stage once, she owed me."

"Yours is on your doorstep or something, sorry," Alaska says.

"Or something," Katya says. "You didn't buy me anything, did you? I'm so insulted."

"No, I did! Wait, I have a picture." She goes to the website she ordered it from, and texts it to Katya.

"Oh, my God," Katya says when she sees the boxer briefs with the outline of Alaska the state on them. "Oh, my _God_. We both really excel at self promotion, don't we?"

"I'm sorry, they only had men's," Alaska teases.

"Merry Christmas, you cunt." 

"Merry Christmas Eve, you slut."

Alaska tells Ginger it really was a dildo.

<><><>

Katya sends Alaska dozens and dozens of kiss emojis on New Year's Eve, plus a selfie in a thong that says, _Happy New Year_. And a dick pic with _Happy New Year_ written on her inner thigh.

Alaska's reply is a picture of herself with a _Happy New Year_ tiara on her head and a party hat covering her dick, and a second picture without the hat. 

"This might be getting out of hand," Katya tells Trixie on the phone.

"Nah," Trixie says.

<><><>

Alaska finally gets home in the second week of January, and resolves to lock herself in her apartment and skip all her appointments for a week. She's exhausted.

But she's bored by the second day, and she thinks about-

No. She thinks too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me, everybody!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow burn finally starting to burn! Just a little, though, can't give it all away too soon. Hope the wait is worth it!

"Kadyaaaaa."

Katya smiles. Alaska's in her own living room and she looks particularly happy today. And particularly flirty. "Al?"

"Where are you?"

"I was at a photo shoot. Now I'm in a cab on my way to dinner. Why?"

"Are you going on a date?" She draws out the last word, the pitch swinging up at the end.

"Yes, darling, I've been meaning to tell you I'm having an affair with Alaska Thunderf- Oh, wait."

"Awkward."

"Very," Katya agrees. "I have time to talk, though. What's up?"

"You should put your headphones in."

Now that's intriguing. The glass is up between Katya and the driver, so she says, "Are you going to talk dirty to me?" while she pulls out her earbuds.

"I might."

 _Very_ intriguing. "Okay, hit me."

"Remember last month, when we were in bed and you offered to show me something?"

"And I sent it to you."

"Eventually and only when pressed. No, not that. The other thing."

Katya's mouth opens and closes, and she has to clear her throat before she can say, "That's still on offer, but I'm a little tied up right now."

Alaska's smile gets impossibly bigger. "Oh, I wasn't asking. I was offering."

"Oh. I. Um. Wow."

"If you're interested, I mean."

"Of course I'm fucking interested, are you kidding me?"

"Okay." And Alaska peels off her shirt.

"Oh, okay. So we're doing this now?"

The pants come down. "We don't have to."

"No, no, please continue," Katya says quickly.

Alaska looks up to grin at her again, and strips off her underwear.

Katya checks the rearview mirror to make sure the driver still isn't paying attention to her. "That's, um," she says. "Wait. Are you sure about this?"

The flirtatious smile gets softer, fonder. "Katya. Yes, I'm sure. Thank you for checking, though."

They share a long look before Katya says, "Feel free to continue at any time."

Laughing, Alaska leans back in the hotel chair. "Here, have a good look," she says. She lets her legs fall open, and holds her phone for a close-up.

"Jesus," Katya says. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I am on my way to a business meeting. Are you trying to ruin my career?"

"Not your career," Alaska says, wrapping her hand around her dick. "Just your pants."

It crashes into Katya's brain like meth. All of her synapses light up and she's in public and she doesn't think she can stand it.

And Alaska can see it in her face, because she says, "Should I stop?"

"What the fuck," Katya says. They're still at least half an hour from the restaurant, she thinks. She hopes. "Who needs a career, anyway?"

<><><>

When Katya calls Alaska after her show, hours later, she's bubbling over with reports of the audience and the opening act and how sweet the fans were and how she tripped onstage and-

"Katya. I thought you were going to reciprocate?"

The look on Katya's face suggests this is the best idea she's ever heard in her life. "Oh, God, can I?" And then, before Alaska can answer: "You know what I appreciate most about you? You only try to keep me on topic when it's about sex."

"Noted," Alaska says. "Take it all off, baby."

Katya's on the bed, and wearing nothing but her makeup, in seconds.

"That was fast," Alaska says.

"Shut up. I'm busy."

And she is busy. Very busy, very fast. Alaska's so, so glad she decided to give Katya a show earlier.

It's a little awkward, because Katya's in too much of a hurry to find a good place for her phone, so the picture blurs in and out while she's holding it. But it's very, very hot.

And then, just as Katya gets to the best part, when Alaska's mouth is watering, Katya _drops her fucking phone_.

"Oh shit oh shit," she says, laughing, and grunting, and presumably coming, though Alaska doesn't get to see it.

"I feel cheated," Alaska says. "This was a terrible meet and greet. I want my money back.

Katya finds the phone again and focuses on herself licking semen off her finger. "I'll make it up to you," she says.


	20. Chapter 20

They spend the next weeks in a flurry of dirty pictures and filthy facetimes, sharing secrets and big, goofy smiles. 

This is different sober, too, Alaska thinks. Or maybe it's not, maybe it's just them. There's very little left to be afraid of with Katya. There's joy and a peaceful longing and a sense of falling into place, and Katya's impossible blue eyes through the screen. And everything there was before, too: the goodnight calls and the sympathy and the ridiculous texts and the farcical fashion advice and the coloring book pages.

"We did this backwards," Katya says, curled up in another strange bed, looking just as rumpled and just as enticing as she did that morning in Toronto. Only now there's no underwear.

"What? This?" Alaska motions between her phone and herself. "Are there rules?"

"Maybe not backwards," Katya says. "Maybe just weird. But that's on brand for us."

"I think we did it exactly right," Alaska says, and watches a sexy smile bloom on Katya's face.

"Have I ever told you how brilliant and beautiful and talented you are?" Katya asks.

"Repeatedly," Alaska says. "My turn today."

<><><>

 **Katya:** stun  
**Alaska:** herpes  
**Alaska:** mancakes  
**Katya:** maple syrup

 **Alaska:** frothy  
**Katya:** garrulous  
**Alaska:** foresail  
**Katya:** How are you making all of these sound dirty.  
**Alaska:** I can't help how you interpret them.  
**Alaska:** glory  
**Katya:** No. If you want to go to the porn store for your birthday just tell me.

<><><>

"What's the matter?" Katya asks as soon as she sees Alaska's face.

Nothing's the matter, except a long day and a quiet audience and probably low blood sugar, plus Katya being too far away. Alaska shrugs and says, "I'm just on my period or something. I wanted to hear your voice."

"Here I am! Do you want me to sing? I can sing!"

"God, no," Alaska says. "Why would I want that?" It comes out sharper than she intended and Katya's smile fades a little.

"You _are_ in a bad mood."

"Sorry, I'm not fit for human consumption today."

"I'm never fit for human consumption, so we're even."

"I miss you a lot," Alaska says. She watches Katya's face brighten again.

"I miss you, too," Katya says. "What can I do?"

"You're already doing it. Just be you."

"I can do that. I'm good at that."

"You're good at a lot of things," Alaska says.

"Was that a hint?" Katya asks, grinning coyly. "Do you want to watch me?"

It wasn't a hint, but Alaska's on board. "I think that might improve my mood considerably," she says.

Katya kisses the camera on her phone. "Anything I can do to help," she says as she pulls her shirt over her head. 

It does help. It helps a lot.

<><><>

After they hang up so Alaska can sleep, Katya just lies there on her hotel bed, smiling at nothing. She remembers the look in Alaska's eyes as she watched, the hitch in her voice when she said, "You're beautiful when you come." She remembers feeling like Alaska was in the room, like Katya was warmed by her heat.

She stretches out her body as far as it can stretch, and decides that the world can wait, for a while. She's not ready to move and break the spell.


	21. Chapter 21

It's Alaska's idea to choreograph a number together. They argue happily over which song to use, but there are really only two choices. 

"Cherry Bomb is too obvious," Katya says. 

"You can lick me this time."

"Sold."

They work on it, on and off, while Alaska goes back on the road, and Katya returns to the US, making her way west from New York. While Alaska goes to South America, and Katya finally gets to go home and take a selfie in her Christmas present underwear.

They put a lot more into it than it needs. They giggle while they play the song over and over. They plan grinding, and twerking, and licking, and a lot of hair, and it's really fucking hot, and somehow most of their sessions end with one or both of them getting off. 

They're working on the excuse that hanging a lantern on it will keep people off the trail. Or else they've both just lost it, Katya's not sure.

But then there's the time when she can't even make it through the fucking song once without a jerk-off break.

Katya fans herself on her couch after putting her pants back on and says, "Okay, _now_ it's getting out of hand." 

"Now it's what?"

"You don't think it's a bit much? Do you really want to do all this on stage?"

"We're drag queens. Of course it's too much."

One of them should have some sense, Katya thinks. But Alaska's looking at her with that crooked smile, and she's so cute with her hair messily clipped on the top of her head, in her little running shorts that she'll never wear for running and a tank top with Katya's name on it in Russian. And all Katya can really say is, "Never mind." 

Alaska waggles an eyebrow at her. "Don't worry, it's fine."

"Says the man who used to let his boyfriend blow him on stage."

"Yeah, I might not be the best judge," Alaska admits.

<><><>

They make it through the song twice, the next time, and Katya's thinking about how proud she is of them when Alaska asks her a question. 

Katya can't have heard what she thinks she heard. "Do I have a what?"

"A fleshlight."

"That's what I thought you said."

"Katya. Do you have one?"

"If this is leading to something filthy and twisted, I approve." 

"Kadya," Alaska says. She disappears for a moment, rifles through something Katya can't see, and returns with a bright pink dildo. And a condom.

Katya gasps theatrically. They've never even gotten themselves off simultaneously before; it's always been a one-woman show, so to speak. Or, more often lately, two one-woman shows in quick succession. "Alaska Joanne Elizabeth, you are a very naughty boy. If only everyone knew how depraved you are."

"Katya. Fleshlight," Alaska says, and Katya gives in and runs to her toy box before Alaska can start without her.

<><><>

Katya has an expertly tuned imagination and it's too easy to convince herself that Alaska's right there, that she can smell Alaska and taste Alaska. To let herself say, "Oh, God, you feel so good," and to revel in Alaska moaning her name. To be thrilled when they come at almost the same time, and to want to pull Alaska close afterwards and not let go.

It's too hard to find only space where Alaska should be. Coming down to the reality of her empty apartment is not fun.

Alaska looks just as shell-shocked. They stare through the cameras and the satellites, still breathless and raw, stripped bare in more ways than one. Katya drops her toy on the floor and Alaska sets hers aside, and Katya can't be sure at this resolution, but she thinks she can see tears in Alaska's eyes.

It's almost too much to look at her. Katya blinks, shakes her head to clear it.

"That was. Um," she finally manages to say.

"Intense," Alaska says, her eyes unbelievably big.

"Amazing, but."

"Amazing but intense. Yeah."

"I don't think I." Katya shakes her head again, inhales deeply a few times. "It is absolutely killing me that you are not here right now."

Alaska sighs. "Me too. I want," but there are tears in her voice now, too, and she can't, or won't, finish.

"We can't," Katya says. "Not like this." Not again, not until.

"No." Alaska shakes her head, covers her mouth with one hand, squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them, she looks at Katya helplessly.

It's rare that Katya remembers she's a few years older than Alaska. But once in a while, Alaska gets this look on her face that makes Katya feel like a dirty old lady.

It also makes her want to cancel everything on her calendar for the next week, and get right on a plane.

"Al," she says. "It's okay. I promise. It'll be okay."

"I know," Alaska says. "I love your vagina."

"I love your pussy. Shit, I'm freezing."

"You're shivering," Alaska says.

Katya takes extra time looking for her discarded t-shirt and her Alaska underwear, and pulling them both on. "Do you," she starts. She's a little afraid to ask. "Do you feel like you let me see too much?"

Alaska uses the same tactic, pulling up a sheet while she thinks about it. "No," she says finally, sounding a bit surprised. "I just wish it wasn't on a laptop screen."

"Me too," Katya says. "We'll just have to go back to other things for a while." 

"But I wanted this to be-"

"It _was_. It was incredible, and we'll do it again someday."

"I don't want to sleep alone," Alaska says. And then, "Maybe we should do Le Freak, after all."

"Let's just watch your season again," Katya says. "So I can make fun of Rolaskatox."

"Bitch," Alaska says fondly. "Let's watch one of your stupid recap shows instead, so I can make fun of you."

Katya makes a big show of shrugging and saying, "Oh, all right." 

Alaska looks at her suspiciously. "You knew I was going to say that, didn't you? You wanted me to say that."

That, or something like it. "Yep," Katya says proudly. 

"Bitch," Alaska says again. "Let me just clean up first." And she makes sure to give Katya a nice view of her backside as she goes.

There are still almost three weeks left. Katya _is_ going to die.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you there would be penises!

This promoter is cheap, making them all wait for the last flight to arrive before he'll get them a ride. Of course most of the girls wait in the bar. _("Wait," Katya thinks with mental air quotes.)_ It will make for either a colorful or a soporific evening.

Katya sits in Starbucks with a tired and moody, and therefore quiet, Violet, who's sketching design ideas while Katya listens to her new numbers yet again. She's always worried about forgetting words, even though she rarely does. 

Alaska's plane is the last one scheduled to land. Katya keeps checking the arrival times on her phone, trying to be subtle, but she knows Violet misses nothing. 

Finally, the promoter attempts to herd eight queens, half of them drunk, into the van. Katya moves fastest and jumps in first, tugging Alaska by the hand into the farthest seat back. They've barely had a chance to say a word to each other yet.

"I want to fuck you so bad," she says into Alaska's ear. "It's killing me."

Alaska smiles. "I bet it is."

Katya looks around. The others are still scrambling and loading, quite graciously considering their blood alcohol level. No one will notice the slut convention going on in the back seat, or the sparkle in Alaska's eyes.

"Are we still melting?" Katya says. "Please tell me we're not still melting. Or hovering, or whatever gorgeous literary metaphor you're using this week." 

Obviously, they're not. Obviously, Katya is going to give Alaska the best night of her life as soon as possible, and she's made that clear on the phone. But there's always a non-zero chance that Katya's reality is not quite the same as everyone else's, even Alaska's. So she asks, just in case.

Alaska pretends to think about it. Katya smacks her arm.

"Oh, I think we're fucking," Alaska says.

"Oh, thank God." Katya sits back in the seat with a theatrical sigh.

Leaning in close, Alaska laughs at her and asks, "But what if it doesn't live up to all the cybersex we're not having?"

"Then I'm keeping you duct-taped in a hotel room until we get it right," Katya says.

Alaska pulls away and nods solemnly. "That was the correct answer," she says.

They share one heated glance before settling in and trying to ignore one another.

"See, I told you they were fucking," somebody says.

"We are not fucking!" Alaska shouts. It's a standard joke now. It's practically in her contract.

Katya scrambles for a pen in her backpack and writes on the back of her boarding pass, "YET."

<><><>

They go to the hotel only briefly, to clean up and unpack, and then it's on to the venue and a quick rehearsal and a tiny, hot dressing room, where they all take turns at the mirrors.

Alaska avoids Katya as much as possible, but she's ready early and she's always hyped up before going on stage. Tonight she can hardly stand still while she talks to the other girls. So when Katya leaves to go to the bathroom, Alaska waits a few minutes before following her. She intercepts Katya in the corridor and steers her into the women's. She knows it'll be empty, and she needs to do this before Katya changes out of her street clothes. 

"What? Why?" Katya says. Alaska crowds her into a stall and unzips her jeans. "What? No, someone will-"

"Think of it as a reward," Alaska says, falling to her knees. "For your patience."

"I don't need a- Oh, Jesus," Katya says as Alaska swallows her dick. "Okay, maybe I do."

<><><>

"I'm so glad I don't have to tuck tonight," Alaska whispers into Katya's ear in the corridor afterwards. 

"You bitch," Katya says. She's got something tiny and sluttly and BDSM-influenced to squeeze into for her first number, and Alaska helped her pick it out. "Next time I'm wearing one of those stupid dresses that hide all of your sins."

"I would pay money to see that," Alaska says. 

"I'll take it," Katya says. "I have no shame."

By that time they're back in the dressing room and Alaska slides right into the conversation she left.

Katya shakes her head and starts to get dressed, but before long her phone is in her hand. She finds the old shot of her gaff and texts it to Alaska with the word "Bitch."

She watches Alaska check her phone from across the small room, watches her hide a smile and type a response without looking at Katya. "You can wear my dresses."

"You're a seven foot tall alien," Katya texts back. "I'd trip and fall off the stage and die and the real question is can I wear one of your wigs."

Alaska very slowly types, "Maybe if you don't wear anything else," and looks up to watch Katya's reaction. 

Katya meets her eyes for just a second and then turns off her phone, ignoring Alaska completely. But she can't stop hearing Alaska's laugh.

<><><>

The show has extra energy that night, partly because they haven't all seen each other in a while, and partly because, well. 

Their shared number is towards the end of the show, and they've cut out all the bumping and grinding, going for Le Freak and pure comedy instead. There's licking--actually two licks, one for each of them, both drawn out for emphasis. There's Alaska faking a death drop and Katya pretending she can't do a handstand until Alaska helps her. There's Katya ripping Alaska's wig off to reveal another underneath, and each of them imitating the other. There's the audience screaming, and the other queens cheering from offstage. 

"There's your pandering for the night, kids," Katya says, and the screaming gets louder.

"That could have been interesting, if you were actually fucking," Violet says to Katya. "But you're not, right?"

Katya says nothing. She likes being enigmatic. It's new for her.

By mutual, silent agreement, she and Alaska stay much later than usual after the meet and greet. They sign autographs, pose for pictures, go along to the club.

"Anticipation kink," Katya says quietly, as they walk behind the other girls. "I knew it."

Alaska smiles but doesn't look at her, and keeps her distance for the rest of the night. It's unusual behavior for them, these days, and bound to raise suspicion, but it's also delicious torture.

Until it starts becoming more torture than delicious. Katya's having trouble keeping her eyes off Alaska's yellow skirt, which she knows Alaska only kept on after the show to tease her; usually she gets out of drag as soon as possible. The hotel seems much too far away.

Some of the girls are pairing off with men and leaving, and some are talking about sleep. Katya marches up to Alaska and says in her ear, "You need to take a piss."

"Oh!" Alaska says coyly, turning away from the guys she was talking to with a wave. "Are you sure?"

Katya walks a few steps and makes sure Alaska follows her and says, "Just trust me." 

Which is how they end up, not in the men's room, but hidden away on the back stairs to the basement storeroom, kissing like fools and trying not to giggle. 

"You know what?" Katya says against Alaska's lips.

Alaska kisses her again before asking, "What?"

"We're going to be naked. In the same room!" 

"At the same time!" Alaska says.

They laugh as quietly as they can, hands over each other's mouths, and kiss some more. 

Katya feels giddy and weightless and she doesn't intend to go any further, but she is not a paragon of self control. So she soon finds herself diving under the skirt. Alaska is, as promised, untucked, and as a bonus she's taken off most of the layers she wears underneath. 

"Kadya," Alaska whines, her hand on Katya's head through the fabric. "We'll get caught."

Katya pulls yards of tulle and chiffon off her face so she can look up and says, "Which you don't actually mind at all anymore, and I can tell because that was your number seven whine, not numbers one through three, which all mean a tantrum is imminent."

"Bitch," Alaska says with a soft smile. "I do mind, a little."

"I can stop? Or you can just come fast."

Alaska chooses the second option.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change, and yes, that means what you think it means!

After saying their goodbyes and walking back to the hotel ("We are _not_ sitting next to each other in a fucking van," Katya says), they head for Alaska's room. Alaska's pulse is racing, her dick already hard again.

Katya, though. Katya seems calm, cool, collected--all of which she can fake easily--until they get inside, and Katya shoves her up against the wall and she's just as hard as Alaska.

"I'm Dorothy," Katya says. "You're Toto. Get in this fucking handbasket right the fuck now." And she presses her entire body against Alaska's, covering Alaska's laugh with her own lips.

"How long have you been waiting to use that line?" Alaska asks.

"Like three hours," Katya says. "I didn't want to push my luck and plan ahead."

Alaska's already tearing at Katya's t-shirt and jeans. "Well, you can push now."

"Oh, God, don't say shit like that," Katya says, obliging and helping to get their clothes off.

They find their way to the bed, still kissing. Katya's hands are everywhere, and Alaska pulls her close, catching their dicks between them. They ebb and flow together for a long time, gasping and frottaging and exploring how they like to be touched.

Eventually Katya pulls back, so only their lips are touching. "Too much," she says. 

"I need," Alaska says, thrusting her hips. She's aching and she can't bear the sudden lack of contact.

Katya looks down, wraps her hand around Alaska's dick, and smiles wickedly. "Again?"

"I know it's a terrible hardship for you," Alaska says. "You really hate sucking dick."

"I do, I really do," Katya says as she slides happily down the bed and takes Alaska in her mouth.

Alaska sighs. "That's perfect," she says. "Don't stop."

But Katya does stop. She lets go and lets Alaska's dick bob in the air, rests her head on Alaska's thigh.

"I need to ask you a serious question," Katya asks.

You signed up for this, Alaska reminds herself. You bought a ticket for the Zamolodchikova crazy train. "Yes, dear, what is it?" she asks sweetly, and is rewarded with one of Katya's big, infectious smiles.

"How long is your refractory period?" Katya asks.

"Now? You want to talk about that now?"

"It's important. It will have great bearing on my current decision-making process. I could blow you and then fuck you, or I could fuck you and then blow you, or we could suck each other off, which would be lovely, or you could-"

Alaska interrupts her with, "I believe you mentioned a fucking?" 

Katya's eyes bug out. "An excellent choice, madam," she says, but doesn't move. 

Alaska, frankly, is happy with absolutely anything Katya wants to do with her. Anything. Everything. All of it. But she says, "Okay, so here's what we do. Oral," pointing at Katya, "oral," pointing at herself, "stretch, bang, boom."

Katya laughs and rolls off the bed, and looks up at Alaska from the floor. "Oh my God, you have a _plan_. That is the most you thing I have ever heard."

"Hop to it, then," Alaska says, and crawls off the bed, on top of Katya.

<><><>

Katya fucks like a straight girl's dream, like her own dick is the least important part of the equation. All that blue-eyed laser focus is on Alaska and it's so intense, it almost burns. 

They're back on the bed and Alaska's just selfish enough, for now, to melt into the mattress and let go and take it, all of it.

Katya sucks her into oblivion, rims her until she's panting, preps her so, so delightfully with lube and her fingers. Alaska loses track of her limbs, doesn't recognize the high-pitched sounds coming from her mouth.

"Anticipation kink," Katya says again, looking up from Alaska's crotch. "I like this one."

Alaska can't even reply. She's open and ready and willing and Katya's teasing her prostate, and Alaska shouts when she starts to see stars. And that's when Katya removes her fingers and decides she needs to lick every inch of Alaska's body, right now.

"Payback," Katya whispers in Alaska's ear, rolling her onto her stomach.

All Alaska can do is moan. She grinds into the mattress, arches her back so her ass is in the air, and Katya is still taking her damn sweet time. And it is sweet, it really is--Katya kissing and licking all of her from neck to toes, murmuring things Alaska's too out of it to catch. But when she asks Alaska to switch to her back, Alaska finally loses it. 

She flips Katya onto her back instead, straddles her, and says in a daze, "Condom, where is the fucking condom?"

"It's your room, you slut," Katya says, laughing, and Alaska has to blink before she can remember.

But Katya's already reaching to the side of the bed when Alaska says, "The drawer, you whackjob, where the hell else do you think they would be?"

Alaska's hands are too sweaty to open the packet, so Katya takes it back and has it unwrapped and on in about half a second. It's only fitting that they're both laughing when Alaska slides down onto her.

Alaska breathes out a shivery sigh of relief and Katya grunts and then they're pushing at each other, trying to get more contact, to get deeper. It's too much and suddenly Alaska needs to be still for a moment, needs to bend down and catch Katya's lower lip in her teeth. 

Katya groans into the kiss and stills her hips, too, but reaches back to spread Alaska's ass cheeks with her hands. Alaska feels wonderfully exposed and split open and her whole self shudders as they start moving again. She rides Katya until her thighs burn, and keeps going. She grabs both of Katya's hands and holds them for support as Katya fucks up into her. She finds the right angle and chases those stars and loses track of time again. 

She doesn't know how long it is before Katya takes one of her hands back, and curls her thumb and forefinger around the head of Alaska's cock.

"Yes?" Katya asks.

"Yes, yes, Jesus fucking-" And Katya pulls and twists and there are those sounds again as her orgasm builds and she comes, hard. She's so worked up it squirts in an arc into Katya's hair, and Katya laughs and Alaska laughs and finally Alaska collapses onto Katya, boneless, catching her breath.

Katya wraps her arms around Alaska while she finds her way back to earth, pets Alaska's hair, drops a kiss on her cheek.

Eventually Katya wriggles her hips a little and, oh, God, Alaska's so far gone, she hadn't noticed that Katya's still hard. 

"Can I keep going, my queen?"

"Yes, please, yes, as long as you want, it's perfect."

So Katya flips them again, chuckling. Alaska's legs land on Katya's shoulders and Katya bends her in half when she leans in for a kiss.

"Slow?" Katya asks.

 _How can you still go slow,_ Alaska wonders, but she can't make her brain send the words to her mouth. She hears herself saying, "Yes, yes, yes," again and again.

Katya does fuck her slowly then, and her eyes lock with Alaska's as she pulls out and slides back in, inch by inch, over and over. 

"So much hotter than the fleshlght," Katya says, and then dissolves into nonsense syllables.

Finally starting to feel more coherent, Alaska wants to return the favor and make it all about Katya. She contracts her muscles around Katya's dick, tangles her fingers in Katya's hair, repeats "Yes, fuck me, yes," when she sees how much Katya likes hearing it.

When Katya finally comes she's whimpering and gasping, sweat dripping from her chest onto Alaska's as she milks herself in Alaska's ass. 

Alaska wraps her legs around Katya's waist and cradles Katya's head on her shoulder, and it's a few minutes before she has the heart to say, "Katya. Condom."

"I don't think I can move," Katya says, but she does anyway. She takes care of it quickly and is right back in bed.

"Fuck, shit, damn, pins and needles," Alaska says. Her feet were in the air so long she can hardly feel them. She rolls her ankles and flexes her toes to bring sensation back.

"Sorry," Katya says, not the least bit apologetically.

They end up on their sides, twining their legs together again. Alaska traces the lines of Katya's pecs and abs with one finger, tweaking a nipple occasionally for the joy of making Katya squirm. Katya's nipples are super sensitive for a guy, and Alaska thinks about how pretty they'd look in a pair of clamps. 

"That was a really good plan," Katya says. "Nice work. Five thumbs up."

"I'm glad you approve," Alaska says.

Then Katya smiles like sunshine, eyes bright and wide. "I made you scream like a girl," she says proudly.

"You did," Alaska says, "and I like that about you."

"So am I entitled to half of that hundred thousand now?"

Alaska twists a nipple, making Katya gasp and arch her back. "Gurl, you do that to me a few more times and you can have the whole damn bank account. Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking love your vagina?"

"Not as much as I fucking love your pussy," Katya says.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day, and only one chapter left! I almost don't want to post it because I've loved working on this story so much, which is maybe why I'm still having trouble with the ending. Encouragement welcome! :)

Alaska wakes up to find Katya staring at her, very close. Their noses are almost touching. It's morning.

"Can we repeat the plan?" Katya asks. "I liked the plan." She presses one fingertip into Alaska's lower lip, and Alaska darts her tongue out to lick it. Katya pulls her finger back, pretending to be disgusted.

"New plan today," Alaska says with a smile. "Little bit sore."

Katya grins at her. "I very much enjoyed fucking you into the mattress, by the way."

"I very much enjoyed being fucked into the mattress."

"Slut," Katya says. 

"Whore," Alaska says. 

"Shower," Katya says. "I'm too sticky to be sexy."

They take turns, Katya first, then Alaska. When Alaska's done, she walks out of the bathroom dripping wet, the air conditioning sparking nerves all over her skin, and shoves Katya down over the nearest piece of furniture.

"You cunt," Katya says, resisting just for show, but wiggling her ass into Alaska's crotch anyway.

Alaska kneels and yanks down Katya's boxers. "Why did you even put these on? They're in my way."

"To give you a-," Katya starts, then yelps when Alaska bites her on the hip. "A little bit to the right," Katya says, wiggling her ass again.

Alaska smiles into Katya's skin and drags a finger from Katya's lower back to her perineum. "There?" she asks.

Katya only answers with a moan, and Alaska proceeds to eat her out, very, very thoroughly.

<><><>

Later, they have to hurry. There's packing to do, more showers to take, a plane to catch.

Waiting at the airport, sitting between Violet, who's asleep on Katya's shoulder, and Detox, who's singing loudly with her headphones in, Katya scrolls through her phone and sneaks glances at Alaska. Alaska's sitting across from her, looking prim and proper and not at all debauched, and it's almost more than Katya's dick can take. 

So she texts Alaska a couple dozen eggplant emojis, clicks send, and then texts a couple dozen more.

Alaska laughs when she sees them, not looking up, and texts back, "I admire your restraint in not using that one earlier." Then she sends a Moliere quote, _in fucking French_ , which she's obviously been holding onto for a while: _"Les arbres qui grandissent le plus lentement sont ceux qui portent les meilleurs fruits."_ The slowest-growing trees bear the best fruit.

The only thing that keeps Katya from tackling her to the ground then and there is the boarding call for their flight. 

It's mid afternoon when they arrive at the next hotel. Katya doesn't even bother to look at her room. She settles into Alaska's. 

"Well, you're the one with the condoms," she says.

"All that trade and no condoms," Alaska teases. 

"It's funny," Katya says. "Somehow I haven't wanted to fuck strangers in a while." 

"Same." Alaska grins, and Katya kisses her.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter. :( I'm going to miss this story so much! Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the lovely feedback. You guys are the best!

It's weeks later, and the tour is almost over, and Katya's chin is perched on Alaska's stomach early in the morning. They'll be back to hands and toys and cameras soon.

Alaska combs through Katya's hair with her fingers and says, "Thank you."

"For what? For all the fucking?"

"For the fucking, and the sucking, and your fucking mouth-" 

"That's a service I provide for free," Katya says.

"And just generally being amazing," Alaska continues, "and for letting me, I don't know. Set the pace."

There's a quiet moment while Katya kisses Alaska's belly. 

"I get it," Katya says, sitting up and crossing her legs. "I got it. You needed to know it would work before you took the risk."

"No." Alaska sits up, too. "Not that it would work. That we could make it last, my little hummingbird." She thinks for a second, taking Katya's hand. "And that we could keep it off Reddit."

"Done, and done," Katya says. Then she admits, "I needed time, too. I don't do anything in slow motion, and this was better frame by frame."

"Train metaphors to film metaphors?" Alaska says.

"Because we're _stars_ , baby."

Alaska looks at her fondly and muses, "I wonder what would've happened if we fucked that first night? When we kissed."

"I don't know," Katya says, squeezing Alaska's hand. "But I don't think we'd be here."

"Good answer," Alaska says. She tangles her fingers in Katya's hair, and kisses her. Then she stretches out on her side, pulling Katya along with her, feeling Katya's smile against her lips.

They lie together and fuck lazily, sweetly, lubed fingers twisting in one another's asses, hands wrapped around both dicks together, eyes locked as they come, one after the other.

Eventually they have to get up, take their turns in the shower. Alaska's got shampoo in her hair when Katya dances back into the bathroom and holds up her phone. 

"Now can I call my mother and tell her I'm bringing a girl home?" 

"You can," Alaska says. "But we should probably put some clothes on first."

<><><>

"Alaska!" Jinkx gives her a hug backstage. "What are you doing here? Did you bring your hotter half?"

"He got waylaid by some fans and I kept walking," Alaska admits happily. 

"You abandoned him to the wolves!"

"I did. I'm a terrible person. Can I help?"

"God, yes, I don't even know how I got into this couture. I thought you two were still in hiding?"

"We were never in hiding," Alaska says while she unzips the back of the dress. Then she kneels and starts tugging at the silver fabric. "We just didn't want to see the rest of you hos crowing about how you knew it all along."

"I never crowed!" Jinkx says. "I bought you a gift card for Chi Chi LaRue's, you ungrateful bitch."

Alaska grins. "Which was appreciated, thank you." She helps Jinkx step out of the dress, stands up, and folds it carefully, ready for a suitcase. "No, we just thought it might be good to leave our hotel room, and we saw that you were here."

It's September, and Katya and Alaska had agreed to meet up for a few days in Chicago after separate performances in Minneapolis and St. Louis. It's a happy accident that Jinkx is in town at the same time.

"I'm honored," Jinkx says, shimmying out of her underthings.

"You should be."

"Hey, I just got booked for that Bahamas cruise next February," Jinkx says. "I heard you guys turned it down?"

"She won't go," Alaska says. "No place to hide."

"Sneaking into each other's staterooms would be awkward," Jinkx agrees. 

"It's not even that," Alaska says. For Katya it's about anxiety and privacy, and Alaska can no longer be comfortable where Katya's uncomfortable.

"And what, you can't travel without her anymore?" Jinkx teases.

Alaska shrugs. She's saved from answering by Katya bursting into the dressing room.

"You cunt," Katya says, laughing. "I can't believe you left me there."

"Yes, you can," Alaska says.

"You're right, I totally can."

"They love you, baby."

"They love you, too, but you're sneakier and your sneakiness hasn't rubbed off on me yet."

"Aww," Jinkx says. "You're adorable. Now kiss and then tell me how fabulous I am."

<><><>

February is the two-year anniversary of Whatever This Is, as Katya still calls it, and Alaska declares that they need snow. 

"Snowboarding?" Katya says. "Worst case scenario, we laugh at each other falling on the bunny slope and spend the rest of the time drinking hot chocolate and wearing ridiculous hats."

"That is absolutely insane and I love it," says Alaska, who's never been snowboarding in her life, and who knows Katya hasn't been since she was a kid.

Aspen is too gay for anonymity, and they're both performing in Europe, separately, at the time. So they end up in Switzerland, where they can, as Katya points out, gorge themselves on chocolate _and_ semen.

Alaska's just as bad at snowboarding as she'd expected _(”You need some Pilates in your life and I'm not letting you weasel out of it anymore," Katya says.)_ and Katya picks it back up like breathing. So on the second day, as soon as they've graduated to an actual trail, Alaska falls and lies flat on her back, laughing. 

Katya stops a few feet down and hops back up without taking off her board--the core strength, seriously; she might have a point about the Pilates. But she intentionally flails and falls on the last hop, landing on Alaska.

"Hi," Alaska says.

"Hello there, ma'am," Katya says, and starts kissing Alaska as if they're not lying in a pile of snow on a mountain. It doesn't last long, though, because they're laughing too hard, and other people are zipping by them, telling them to get out of the fucking way in three different languages.

Alaska tilts her head until her forehead touches Katya's, and Katya matches her. 

"I still love your pussy," Katya says.

"I still love your vagina," Alaska says.

"I'm glad we've got that settled." And Katya kisses her again.

<><><>

Not an hour later, there's a picture posted on Reddit. It's taken from a distance, and shows two people in ridiculous hats in the snow, one on top of the other. "I know you can't see their faces, but ISTG this is Katya and Alaska!"

The rest of the sub shoots it down immediately.

"Receipts!"

"Liza Minnelli lies!"

"Everybody knows they don't like each other!"

"When was the last time you even saw them mention each other on social?"

Katya finds out when they go back to the hotel to change for dinner. She has dozens of tweets with the link, and a text from Trixie, which only says, "Busted."

Alaska's got her pants around her knees when Katya puts the phone in front of her face and says, "Our work here is done." 

Alaska snorts and loses her balance and falls onto the bed, Katya cackles and jumps on top of her, and somehow they don't make it out of their room until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Rambling endnotes [here](https://katlaskamylove.tumblr.com/post/180989994228/endnotes), feel free to skip!)
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me so long! I hope it lived up to your expectations!


End file.
